Yas Island’s marketing engine is no longer selling a destination—it’s engineering cultural relevance. In an interview with Communicate, Badr Bourji, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Miral Destinations, says the island’s strategy now hinges on “living inside the world’s audiences already love,” a shift transforming Abu Dhabi’s flagship attraction into a global entertainment player.
For Bourji, the pivot didn’t come from a single campaign but from years of observing how fans, not travellers, shape the world’s most powerful conversations. The metric that matters today, he says, is cultural presence, not mere visitation.
At the centre of that ambition is Stranger Things: The Experience, launched ahead of the show’s final season. The timing is deliberate, aligning Yas Island with a fandom that has defined a decade of binge-watching and intergenerational nostalgia.
Bourji says audiences now expect more than escapism; they want to inhabit the stories that dominate their screens. “People don’t just want a getaway anymore,” he says. “They want to step into the stories they love.”
For Yas Island, that means embracing fandoms that operate year-round, remaining active and vocal long after tourism seasons subside. The destination wants to live inside those communities, not chase them from afar.
Global IP, Bourji argues, gives the island cultural permanence. Fans who interact with Yas Island online before they visit—and continue the conversation after—extend the destination’s influence far beyond its physical footprint.
To measure success, Bourji says the team tracks how Yas Island shows up in global conversations. How fans remix its content, how creators adopt its stories, and how communities fold the island into their cultural vocabulary.
That thinking shaped the Batman “villain chase” on Sheikh Zayed Road, a roadside activation that spread like a micro-blockbuster. It was exaggerated, playful and instantly shareable—the kind of moment built to travel across timelines.
Such ideas come from adopting what Bourji calls a “studio mindset,” where marketing behaves more like serialized storytelling than advertising. “It’s never just an ad,” he says. “Every touchpoint should be a moment of entertainment.”
The island has already tested this playbook with its Chief Island Officer campaigns, pairing Jason Momoa with Aquaman’s release and deploying Ryan Reynolds ahead of Deadpool hype—each syncing Yas Island with the rhythms of global cinema.
The strategy draws inspiration from brands like Fortnite, Barbie and Nintendo, all of which turned entertainment IP into participatory worlds. Yas Island’s ambition is similar: to turn cultural energy into physical experiences audiences can inhabit.
For Bourji, these moves signal a chapter that transcends tourism. “When fans feel we’re part of their world—not just inviting them into ours—that’s when Yas Island stops being a destination,” he says. “That’s when it becomes culture.”
