Brand case study · Travel · Middle East
Wego and 7 rivals lean on adventure and may miss luxury travel in KSA
For Wego, SOMIN read 16,235 pieces of paid and organic media from 8 travel brands in 6 Middle East markets. Adventure Explorers led 6 personas with 1,125 unique media; luxury travel in KSA looked underused.
The challenge
Wego against 7 travel brands in 6 Middle East markets
Wego's rivals range from ITL Group and Dadabhai to Regency, Cozmo and Almulla. The study asked who they talk to, what about, how they relate and which challenges they address.
The approach
Personas, topics, relatability and challenges, by market
- Gathered paid and organic media, with country filters on ads.
- Clustered it with SOMIN's semantic models.
- Compared clusters by market, then each brand's focus within it.
- Defined a test-and-learn process for the findings.
Key findings
Adventure dominates, KSA luxury lags and Kuwait has specialists
Adventure is the default
Adventure Explorers leads the region; Family Explorers is second in every market except Kuwait.
Luxury in KSA is underused
Luxury Adventurers ranks 3rd to 4th in most markets but 5th in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Kuwait has specialists
KAPICO and Regency focus on luxury personas, Alghanim Travel on Thrifty Explorers, and Family Explorers is less crowded.
What SOMIN delivered
6 traveller personas and 6 topics by market and brand
- Media counts per brand and market
- Personas: Adventure Explorers, Luxury Adventurers and the Soulful, Thrifty, Family and Festive Explorers
- Topics led by global travel destinations (491 unique media) and travel offers and packages (456)
- 6 relatability themes and 6 challenges
- A test-and-learn route to communication directions
“This shows that the tracked brands used to understand the market may not be capitalizing on luxury travel in KSA.”
From the SOMIN region study
The outcome
Wego can test luxury in KSA and families in Kuwait
Open lanes include luxury travel in KSA, Family Explorers in Kuwait and Thrifty Explorers in the UAE. Generate angles, adopt, test and learn, then reinforce what works.
FAQ
Wego case study FAQ
About SOMIN
SOMIN is a Singapore-based AI marketing-intelligence platform. It turns real-time competitor and audience data into pre-scored propositions, briefs and creative concepts for brands, agencies and creator programmes across 11+ markets.
Built by seasoned marketers and an AI professor: the methods behind this study are peer-reviewed at AAAI, ACM Multimedia, SIGIR, WSDM and in ACM TOIS. See the research and talks.
Which markets and brands were covered?
Bahrain, KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE, and 8 brands: Wego, ITL Group, Dadabhai, Alghanim Travel, KAPICO, Regency, Cozmo and Almulla.
Does the 16,235 total double count?
It can. Some pages are regional, so media may repeat across market datasets.
How were the personas built?
X-means clustering on ADA embeddings with SOMIN's audience semantic model.
Get the full Wego case study
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