A SPORT-ORIENTED APPROACH IN RE-BRANDING DESTINATIONS: AN IMPLICATION TO SAUDI ARABIA

Abstract

Abstract Our contribution offers a significant insight to prior work in the field of ‘’destination branding’’, providing the first detailed academic discussion about Saudi Arabia possible implications of ‘Co-branding’’ in the context Sport. Combining knowledge from different ‘’similar to’’ countries with the 2030 vision and its implementation to reposition the kingdom globally. Subsequently, it is the first to draw directly from key leading stakeholders within and outside the Saudi sport system. The study aims in closing image-reality gap that challenge the perception and stereotype of countries in the Middle East throughout the CoBranding theory(Brannagan and Richard, 2015). Anholt (2006) urge those counties to proactively respond to the noticeable economic growth in Gulf Cooperation Council through the utilization of branding with a major focus on sport. Thereby, this research has addressed the knowledge gap by investigating the competencies of the sport sector in Saudi Arabia which has been revealed as one of the integral aspects to manage the implementation of destination branding in an emerging destination (Palmatier and Sridhar, 2017). The exploratory study has sought to remedy the knowledge gap by conducting online-semi structured interviews with five key industry stakeholders from Saudi and Britain. The findings are as follow: destinations that lacks knowledge-based development and lacks technological components could benefit from Co-branding as a strategy that is contemplated from the ‘’experience city’’. A strong correlation exists among co-branding theory and entertainment industry. This reassured the importance of a leisure city to successfully host mega sport events. Lastly, the study shed the light to the importance of Glocalization and Place Management in the implication process. The result suggested that the initiatives undertaken in Golf countries are noteworthy which is the core argument of the paper.