Share

Beyond the Billboard: Saudi’s Disruption of Destination Marketing

June 23, 2025

A few years ago, Saudi Arabia wasn’t even in the top 50 tourism destinations globally. Today, it ranks in the top 10. At Cannes Lions, Fahd Hamidaddin, CEO of the Saudi Tourism Authority | الهيئة السعودية للسياحة, walked us through how they did it… not through slogans, but with strategy, storytelling and soul.

Tourism accounts for 10% of global jobs and GDP. It’s also growing at 6.6% annually. But most of the industry still chases impressions. STA isn’t. They’re building what they call a “media model for memorability.” At Cannes, Fahd showed us how it works and why it matters far beyond tourism.

From Storytelling to Story Scaling

Back in 2019, STA began with no legacy to fall back on. So, they visited the world’s best. Their key takeaway? Stay original. Cut through advertising noise. Build from within. Since then, they’ve scaled Saudi’s story into one of the biggest tourism transformations globally, without selling a product they can control.

The Realities of Attribution and Optimisation

STA doesn’t own airlines, hotel chains or experiences. They can’t predict or control the service delivery. But they still need to drive performance. This makes traditional attribution models irrelevant. Optimisation becomes complex. The usual travel playbooks don’t apply. Then there’s scale. Saudi Arabia is two-thirds the size of Europe. Its consumer data isn’t structured. It has no mass purchase behaviour. But it has ambition and now, it has a model.

AI: Authenticity and Innovation

Forget generative content. STA’s AI isn’t about machine creativity. It’s about pattern recognition at a human level. They’ve developed a “memorability index” rooted in science, data, and human emotion. The top drivers? Surprising moments. Immersive, larger-than-life experiences. New learnings.

This isn’t travel content. It’s emotional mapping.

From Segments to Souls

Most destinations bucket audiences by “travel purpose.” Business. Leisure. Adventure. STA rejected that. They didn’t segment travellers by intent. They focused on identity. What makes a trip memorable for you may not be a tick-box activity. It may be a cultural moment, like young Saudis singing in Korean at a BlackPink concert in Riyadh. That’s not tourism data, it’s soul data. STA is now engineering for that.

Affinity Over Awareness

Fahd broke their strategy down into four circles: True Voice, Soul Segments, Collective Precision, and Connection. At their intersection? Affinity. That’s the shift: from awareness to emotional fit. And the results? In the first year of this model, STA cut budget waste by 25% and reduced CPA by 60%.

Global Impact

Saudi isn’t just trying to attract more tourists. It’s trying to reshape tourism. At Cannes, Fahd said: “There’s no such thing as overtourism. It’s just traffic management.” The real issue isn’t the destination, it’s the distribution of attention. 10% of travellers go to 10% of the world.

Saudi is trying to break that pattern. It’s addressing friction points: visas, perception, product access. It’s making tourism a stage for culture, music, sustainability and technology. And in November, Saudi will host Tourise”, a global summit for leaders across sectors. Not just tourism. Culture. Finance. Energy. All of it.

The Bigger Picture

Tourism creates jobs at a time when everything else is being automated. STA’s story is about more than travel. It’s about how marketing can fuel real growth, build national image, and bring people together.

Media doesn’t just sell. It can shift how people feel, think, move. Saudi knows that now. And they’re inviting the world to join them in rethinking what destination marketing can be.

READ MORE

View all