How Hospitality Brands Are Leveraging Influencers

Influencer marketing and hospitality brands are well-matched. Travel-related brands are connecting with engaged audiences by asking authentic influencers to endorse their hotels, airlines, venues, excursions, or dining experiences. 

Hospitality brands commonly use influencer trips. Dispatching influencers to exotic locations is an effective marketing tool, but it’s not the only campaign option. Take a look at these five ways that hospitality brands work with creators.

Launching challenges for influencers

Well-known travel companies are encouraging influencers to share their travel experiences. For example, a hospitality brand or group invites influencers to document their unique dining experiences at its hospitality venues. From breakfast in bed to fine dining, creators showcase the gastronomic delights that enhance their stay. This campaign highlights the exceptional food and beverage offerings, creating a deliciously enticing narrative for potential guests.

For example: To promote Tampa Bay, IZEA partnered with foodie and craft beer lifestyle influencers to promote restaurants in the area.

Hilton launched a celebrity ambassador group in 2023 with big-name stars like golfer Annika Sorenstam and country music singer Michael Ray. The celebrities create exclusive content for Hilton subscribers, and the hospitality brand touts its team of influencers regularly on social, like this: 

Planning influencer trips

One of the most common influencer campaigns for hospitality brands is sending influencers on trips. Brands are tapping these influencers to experience different locations. 

Hilton regularly uses influencer trips, putting its properties in front of travelers. The brand recently created a list of the “seven urban wonders of the world,” all of which were in close proximity to a Hilton hotel. The brand sent ambassadors to each “wonder” and asked them to share their travel experiences. 

Take a look at two posts from a Hilton ambassador below. One post showcases the Heydar Aliyev Center, one of the Hilton’s seven urban wonders, and the other features a nearby Hilton hotel. Both posts include #SevenUrbanWonders.

Hosting contests or giveaways

Contests and giveaways on social media generate a lot of engagement, especially if influencers promote them. Travel brands offer gifts like free flights, lodging, or excursions.

Southwest Airlines worked with travel influencers, The Bucket List Family, who sold all their possessions in exchange for a life of travel. The family, which has 2.9 million followers on Instagram, gave away airfare for two on behalf of Southwest. The post received 124,391 likes. 

Opting for travel interviews, tips, and hacks to diversify content

Influencer trips and contests are fairly common campaigns for hospitality brands, but hospitality brands also look for ways to incorporate other types of content to promote their brand, but uniquely and engagingly. They ask influencers to shoot travel tips or packing hacks on their next trip, for example. Interviews are an excellent option, too.

Moxy Hotels, for example, partnered with YouTube influencer Taryn Southern, to create a comedic web series. Taryn interviewed hotel guests in their room, asking them about their trip and playing games like “Gibberish or German,” which you can see in this video:   

Celebrating (unique) holidays

Travel goes up during holidays, so it’s an opportune time to roll out an influencer campaign. Travel brands work with influencers to host Q&As on their social channels that focus on holiday-specific travel tips or ask influencers to share memories from their favorite holiday trips. 

Of course, “holiday” can have many meanings. You can run influencer campaigns during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but even three-day weekends, where bank holidays give people an extra day off, are fair game. 

Consider other holidays or anniversaries that you can “borrow” too. For example, when Canada celebrated its 150th anniversary of confederation, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts piggybacked on the holiday. The brand ran contests, sent promotional emails, and launched two influencer-driven experiential trips. One of the trips was a Great Canadian Railway Adventure that produced stunning influencer posts like this one: 

Considering the stunning visuals that travel presents, it pairs well with the visual world that drives influencer marketing. Consider using one of these influencer marketing campaigns to promote your travel-based brand.

Influencers:

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Marketers:

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