RIYADH: Hours earlier than Saudi Arabia lately gained the best to host World Expo 2030, Italian businessmen Roberto Daneo and Giorgio Re have been with the Kingdom’s crew in Paris eagerly awaiting the voting outcomes.
The pair head WePlan, an organization hand-selected alongside Avisa group by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City to assist develop Riyadh’s bid.
The Italian occasion specialists have a monitor report in securing bids, together with Dubai World Expo 2020, the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and a number of other sporting world championships.
From 2006, whereas working within the Italian metropolis of Turin, Daneo gained five-and-half years’ expertise on the organizing committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
He informed Arab News that the success of Riyadh’s bid was constructed on “all the unique selling points that Riyadh could put on the table,” together with packages for creating international locations and a so-called collaborative change nook initiative.
Nicknamed C3, the collaborative change scheme will contain the Kingdom, from 2025, financing and supporting greater than 27 initiatives from completely different international locations to prepared their Expo shows for 2030.
Re famous that Vision 2030 had offered a robust basis to work on because the nation had already been proving its capabilities to a world viewers.
He stated: “We highlighted the fact that the Expo site visit could be bundled with all the other touristic opportunities that KSA is implementing from now to 2030.”
Daneo identified that Saudi Arabia’s financial profile was a further plus.
He stated: “The countries to vote want a very high return on investment. Therefore, they want to make sure that the country is really a booming economy, a growing country like the Kingdom is.”
Re and Daneo stated the work concerned in securing the bid had been a crew effort between themselves, Avisa group, and the Saudi authorities.
The Italian business companions had even been competing in opposition to their very own capital, Rome, which got here third with 17 votes in opposition to Riyadh’s 119.
“Of course, it was not simple for us to compete in opposition to our capital. It was all in regards to the timing within the sense that Saudi Arabia contacted us, I feel in late 2020, and we began discussions with the RCRC on conceiving the candidature of Riyadh for the Expo.
“So, we as professionals, decided to stay linked to the client that reached out to us first,” Re added.
Daneo stated: “It was a question of respect and a question of loyalty to the client that believed in us and therefore we wanted to show that we were truly and fully committed to the final result.”
The duo famous that, for them, working with a overseas consumer had proved to be a bonus when coping with voting members.
Daneo and Re’s involvement in Dubai World Expo 2020 had opened their minds to Arab tradition.
“I’m personally trying, very soon, to start learning Arabic. I can already detect from the start of the language that it’s really fascinating,” Daneo added.
Re stated: “Being from Sicily, Arab culture is also in a way part of our background. Let’s think about the Arab architecture or even some food. We have couscous in Sicily, for example, there’s also some link there.”
