FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Countrywide Experience

Designing the visitor experience for a global sports destination

In partnership with the Qatar 2022 Organising Committee, we designed the country-wide blueprint for visitor experience. Crafted to not only meet the needs of visitors, but to surpass their expectations, leaving them with long lasting, positive memories of their visit and placing Qatar as a destination.

An unknown global destination for most visitors

As Qatar prepared to host the 2022 World Cup, it faced a unique challenge: welcoming fans to a destination many had never experienced before. We needed to create an experience that told the magical story of a destination filled with both hopes and dreams busting anxieties and preconceptions.

Understanding the hopes and uncertainties of tourists

Mega events like the Football World Cup are an unparalleled tourism opportunity for a host country. Beyond the matches, the visitor experience of the destination can create lasting memories, positive word of mouth and tourism uplift for years to come.

With this in mind, we designed the country-wide blueprint for the visitor experience, meeting the needs of visitors and going beyond expectations to create a long lasting and positive memory.

Mapping the moments that matter

Using innovative research and recruitment techniques, we conducted broad quantitative and in depth qualitative primary research with football fans and visitors from across the globe, focusing both on future visitors who planned to attend and learning from the experiences and memories of fans who had visited previous tournaments.

We combined this with behavioural and psychographic research into the drivers of memory to uncover a series of fresh, powerful insights into the needs and opportunities for visitors to FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

We used these to map a series of end-to-end visitor journeys, pinpointing the key moments to target, and the underlying motivations to be met.

A blueprint for local teams

These insights helped to form a North Star vision and a detailed blueprint for the end to end visitor experience, from the small but important ‘brilliant basics’ through to unexpected highlights and the planned-for ‘big moments’.

Each became a series of design briefs and concepts for local teams to execute, together with high level KPIs to help local teams achieve quality and service in line with international standards.

Bringing it to life

Concepts ranged from a masterplan for street festivals and entertainment across Doha, to brand partnerships and activations. Visual and culturally informed country-wide branding created social moments across all touchpoints connecting at every moment.

Having developed the briefs and concepts, we worked with the Organising Committee as consultants for experience design and operations up in the final lead up to the tournament.

For the audience

The experience blueprint helped to design for a unique event – the first World Cup in an Arab country, as well as the smallest World Cup by geographic area created. The overwhelming reported sentiment from visitors who attended was of a positive experience that surpassed expectations and anxieties.

For the brand

We helped Qatar to allay the anxieties and uncertainties of travellers, while ensuring that perceptions amongst visitors was significantly positive, especially as we designed an experience that drew different cultures together, encouraged visitation to incredible Qatari landmarks and increased dwell time and spend in locations. Building an impression of the country beyond the football moment.

Recent academic research by the Rochester Institute of Technology confirms this, finding that people who visited Qatar during the world cup had their expectations and perceptions of the country exceeded, compared to those who didn’t.