Travel influencers: a new concept for the tourism sector

Until recently, influencers getting in touch with hotels and offering their services in exchange for free accommodation was seen as outlandish. Relationships between influencers and businesses in the tourism industry have gradually improved and it’s now completely normal for both parties to make collaboration proposals. If your company operates within the tourism sector, we recommend you give this article a read and find out more about travel influencers and how to efficiently collaborate with them.

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Why should tourism companies work with travel influencers?

Hotels and brands from the tourism sector have seen how the results achieved through these types of marketing actions have exceeded their expectations and have decided to take initiative. They no longer sit back and wait for influencers to make proposals, but rather they track down profiles with whom they wish to collaborate and establish marketing strategies with the aim of boosting their business.

• Their recommendations can help boost sales

When we plan a trip, we want to make sure everything is perfect. Of course, some people like to improvise, but the great majority of us who are thinking about getting away tend to carry out a lot of online research beforehand.

According to statistics, up to 82% of travellers follow travel blogs or travel and lifestyle influencers on social media. This is because:

• Most users trust influencers’ opinions over other reviews they read online, since in some cases, the latter can be fake.
• Reviews left for commercial places tend to be limited to just a few lines of text and quite often the author’s identity is anonymous. Influencers and bloggers, however, not only share their identity with their followers, but a big part of their lives.

Want to find out more? Take a look at: The Spanish kings of travel on Instagram: Viajawäy

Travel influencers don’t advertise, they share experiences

Marketing actions quite often lose their credibility because users don’t trust brands’ whose ultimate aim is to boost sales. Travel influencers, however, provide this service in a much more natural way. They tell their public how they felt during their stay, show off the facilities and talk about the treatment they received, as if they were talking to a close friend.

• In order to work with influencers and for their recommendations to be fluid and natural, a good technique is to invite them to participate in activities. That way, they can share experiences in real-time on their social media profiles or include them in more curated content, such as a video summary of their trip or a publication.
• They create quality content that engages their audience

Influencers know exactly what their audience likes, which is what makes them the best possible content creators a brand could contract to promote their company. Brands should bear in mind the following tips for collaborating with influencers:

• Discuss campaign ideas with influencers and listen to suggestions
• The influencer must always feel comfortable with the content they’re creating and the tone being used. This is the best way to guarantee that their audience will take recommendations on board.
• The more satisfied the influencer with the experience, the more successfully this will feeling will be conveyed to their audience. It’s important that brands demonstrate their value proposition the best they can to make the influencer fall head over heels for them. Content should be as lively and dynamic as possible.

Influencers know exactly what their audience likes, which is what makes them the best possible content creators a brand could contract to promote their company.

Campaigns with travel influencers: what works best

Every social network has its distinguishing features, from the way it works to the way users make use of it. Bearing this in mind is essential for designing campaign actions and choosing the perfect influencer.

Travel influencers mostly work on more visual social networks and tend to get the best results on:

• A blog is the perfect tool more promoting touristic services. Bloggers who travel the world, documenting their experiences can share limitless information regarding features and prices, whilst maintaining a friendly and close tone.

A blog also allows influencers to include photos and videos, which help tell the story of the trip.

Travel influencers mostly work on more visual social networks

• YouTube

The infamous video platform is another great social network for travel influencers to share their content. Those who prefer to record their stays in hotels and city escapes don’t just share their thoughts and feelings with their public, but also their top moments and get their channel subscribers involved in the fun.

Videos allow users to see a location in an up-close and personal way before they’ve even visited, and it’s for that very reason that travel youtubers have huge followings.

• Instagram

If blogs provide detailed information and Youtube allows the user to see a location before they’ve even visited it, Instagram is all about sharing the fantasy.

Instagrammers are capable of turning every photo into a work of art. They think about every little detail and know just how to boost an image’s impact. A popular Instagram account isn’t just a coincidence.

It’s precisely this care that goes into portraying every moment with as much magic as possible that makes travel influencers the perfect collaborators for establishments in the tourism sector.

The use of hashtags, stories and location tags are other features that this social network has that help make content stand out and be that much more accessible.

It’s precisely this care that goes into portraying every moment with as much magic as possible that makes travel influencers the perfect collaborators

Key points for marketing strategies with travel influencers

Collaborating with travel influencers for marketing campaigns requires more or less the same process as any other campaign, which is as follows:

• Establish campaign objectives: what you wish to achieve, which KPIs you’ll use to analyse the campaign.
• Select the perfect influencers: brands should take into account their audience’s demographic and their engagement rate, rather than the number of followers they have.
• Define campaign actions and create content: this should be agreed between the two parties.
• Forge relationships with travel influencers: these particular profiles look for the absolute best content to share with their audience and helping them achieve this is the best way to ensure a good return on your campaign.
• Execute and measure results: through the previously mentioned metrics.

In conclusion, despite starting off as a rather curious concept, travel influencers have successfully helped many brands achieve excellent results and have managed to turn these types of marketing actions into the norm.

Do you want to launch an influencer marketing campaign for the tourism sector? Get in touch and we’ll give you a hand!