Influencers are best known for their ability to influence—or inspire their followers. This is also true for travel influencers, even though the path to purchase is significantly longer than, say, lipstick. Through stunning visuals and interesting stories, they share locations, attractions, and accommodations that leave their audience desiring that same experience.
For airlines, hotels, tour operators, agencies, festivals, and any other travel or tourism-related business, influencer marketing has become a staple.
But do these influencer campaigns actually drive bookings and lead to revenue? Let’s explore.
Social media influencers allow travel lovers to see new locations, beautiful properties, and unique experiences. They get an insider view into others’ awe-inspiring and dream vacations. This awareness is the first stage of a traveler’s path to booking.
According to Expedia Group and Luth Research’s study, The Path to Purchase: Uncovering How Travelers Plan and Book, in the 45 days leading up to a booking, travelers consume 141 pages of content. 58% of travelers rely on social media to do their research.
This includes user-generated content shared by their friends and family, but also curated content posted by influencers and brands. With influencers, trust has already been established. If they rave about a hotel or cafe, their followers pay attention. And when it comes time to book that vacation, they’ll seek out those exact spots and moments because they feel like they know someone who’s been there and done that. They trust that person’s review, and are then more willing to spend their hard-earned money to replicate it.
Ultimately, it’s about feeling confident in their purchase and removing some of the risk of travel bookings. If it was good enough for the influencer, it’d be great for them too, right?!
Here are a few examples of how this looks in real life:
The challenge lies in creating influencer marketing campaigns that convert and don’t just become another forgotten post in the Saved folder.
Travel isn’t as short-term or impulsive as other industries, like food, apparel, or beauty. And so it’s logical that travel influencer impact also isn’t as immediate. Travel is just more complex and expensive.
But that doesn’t mean influencers can’t be effective at encouraging bookings. You just have to plan the campaign around the goal of bookings, not just awareness or inspiration.
If your goal is to get bookings, you need the right kind of influencer. Look for someone who has enough followers to make an impact, but not too many where they start to lose their influence. You’re looking for someone to suggest your trip or venue, and then have their audience turn around and take action.
This requires an influencer-follower relationship with trust and depth. The follower base has to be exactly the type of person who would book with you, not merely save the post as an aspirational trip. But they also have to be likely to be vacationing in your area. This is a financial conversation, of course, but also relates to their jobs, family lifestyle, hobbies, and more.
Your brand, the influencer, and their audience must all fit. Their audience will sniff out inauthentic partnerships, and that will degrade trust between your brand and the influencer.
For a travel influencer campaign to lead to bookings, the audience needs to be able to imagine themselves there, but then also have the desire and means to actually do it. Influencers have the power to impact their followers’ travel decisions and drive bookings for your brand, but only if you make the right choice in partner.
As you’re vetting potential influencers for your campaign, consider:
Once you have your influencer, you have to create a campaign that can convert. This is where classic marketing comes in; you need messaging, creative elements, and timelines that will increase your likelihood of success (in this case, bookings).
If your content is broad, like generally speaking about a geographical area or hotel brand, you’ll elicit engagement from travelers who enjoy seeing beautiful locations and want to dream. You probably won’t be attracting travelers who are actively considering or planning a trip. Those travelers want to see certain hot travel locales, with specific lodging recommendations and a list of must-do activities.
Or, if you prioritize long-form content intending to rank on SEO—without the necessary corresponding social media campaigns—you may see longevity in your campaign, but not immediate bookings. If your goal is more long term, then incorporating blogging into your strategy may be ideal. But if you’re looking to fill your winter ski schedule, for example, you’ll want to prioritize the short-lived nature of social media instead.
The key to marketing campaigns that result in action, like bookings, is creating urgency, making the case for why travelers should book, and outlining exactly how to book. The overall messaging must smoothly roll into a strong call to action. Influencers typically use the power of photography, videography, and copywriting to make a compelling case for why their followers should take action.
You may also consider discounts to further compel people to book now. During the booking phase, 55% of shoppers use social media to find links and codes from influencers and 53% to look for deals.
Creating unique discount codes or affiliate links for influencers also makes it easier to track attribution, so you know exactly how well the campaign performed and how many bookings came as a direct result of your efforts.
Influencers already have great reach; that’s the whole point. But there are other ways to expand on the work they do.
Steller, for example, recently launched a new Trips feature that makes influencer content bookable. Savvy consumers can use the app to plan their next trip using influencer recommendations by location or trip type. Travelers can see what hotels, restaurants, stores, spas, adventures, and cultural attractions are most loved by influencers and put it all together into their digital trip plan.
The Steller app makes it simple to plan Instagram-worthy trips that are influencer approved.
We have a long history of pairing influencers with travel brands. We know how to vet influencers and create partnerships that drive long-term results. Contact us to get started on your next successful campaign and learn more about our network of influencers.