Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital was the venue for 'Clash on the Dunes', the highly anticipated rematch between heavyweight boxers Andy Ruiz Jr and Anthony Joshua. British broadcasting giant Sky Sports needed flights, hotel nights and transfers for the event. With this being the first major international boxing match to be taking place in Saudi Arabia, Travel Places had to overcome logistical, cultural and timescale challenges to ensure the 90+ production crew were able to seamlessly deliver a moment of boxing history to the UK public.
The venue for the event was chosen just a few months prior to fight night. With any event, short notice requires an experienced team of travel specialists to help deliver it successfully, but this was magnified due to the location of the fight. Saudi Arabia has only recently started to host and promote major international sports events and therefore sourcing accommodation of the right standard, with the right facilities for a large production team would be a challenge. Sky Sports had to entrust someone they knew had unique experience of successfully managing group travel in Riyadh.
The flight schedule that operates from the UK to Riyadh is limited, resulting in flights arriving late in the evening and even the early hours of the morning. The Travel Places team on the ground had to liaise with the transfer company and hotels to negotiate a much later check-in time than standard. Furthermore, many of the travelling production crew had significant amounts of baggage due to the nature of the work they were about to undertake, increasing the number of transfers that were needed.
