In today’s digitally driven world, social media heavily influences travel decisions. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have become essential sources of inspiration for travelers seeking the perfect hotel, whether it’s for a romantic getaway or a group adventure. For hotels aiming to increase bookings, a well-executed influencer marketing strategy can be a game-changer, reaching vast audiences of potential guests.
By partnering with influencers, hotels can effectively showcase their unique features, amenities, and overall guest experience in an engaging and authentic way. High-quality images, captivating videos, and genuine reviews from social media influencers can significantly enhance a hotel’s appeal and attract more customers.
This comprehensive guide dives into the core elements of a successful guide to hotel influencer marketing. We’ll explore how to identify the right influencers and showcase effective campaign strategies, equipping you with the knowledge and tools to leverage the power of influencer marketing. Whether you’re a boutique hotel striving to enhance your local presence or a large resort aiming for a global audience, discover how to transform your marketing and elevate your brand. If you’re new to this space, consider checking out a beginner’s guide to influencer marketing to solidify your understanding.
The Expanding Influence of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing’s rise is undeniable. Its market size has more than doubled from 2019 to 2023, establishing it as a pivotal strategy in various industries, including hospitality. By collaborating with creative influencers who command loyal followings on popular platforms, hotels can significantly boost brand awareness swiftly and efficiently.
While the landscape of influencer marketing is continuously evolving with emerging trends like AI and virtual influencers, the fundamental psychology of influence remains constant. Principles like reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, and unity are still relevant.
The Advantages of Influencer Partnerships
Partnering with influencers offers numerous advantages. They excel at creating engaging content, possess authentic and trustworthy voices, cultivate loyal audiences, and maintain everyday relatability. These qualities enable hotels to tap into new markets, drive bookings, and boost revenue.
Millennials and Gen Z travelers are increasingly turning to social media for travel inspiration and recommendations. A 2022 survey revealed that one in three travelers rely on social media for inspiration, with millennials and Gen Z constituting 60% of this group.
Influencer marketing provides hotels with the opportunity to showcase their properties in visually appealing ways tailored to social media algorithms. Influencers create high-quality content, including stunning photos and videos, to share with their followers, offering insights into a hotel’s location, amenities, and overall guest experience, all of which are crucial for building trust. This type of content can be the deciding factor for potential guests when making booking decisions.
12 Key Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Hotels
Why is influencer marketing so powerful, and why should hotels embrace it?
One compelling reason is its cost-effectiveness and ability to bypass ad blockers. With a significant portion of internet users employing ad blockers, influencer marketing emerges as a highly effective way to reach new audiences with authentic content.
Here’s a breakdown of additional benefits for incorporating influencers into your hotel’s marketing strategy:
- Inspiring Visual Content: Influencers excel at creating visually stunning and inspiring content. Showcasing a hotel’s amenities, rooms, dining options, and overall ambiance creatively can captivate audiences and motivate them to book a stay.
- Increased Direct Bookings: Effective influencer campaigns can directly translate into increased room bookings.
- Enhanced Brand Visibility: Influencers can dramatically boost a hotel’s visibility across social media platforms, drawing attention to the brand and increasing its reach among their followers.
- Higher Engagement Rates: Influencers often boast highly engaged followers, resulting in improved interaction rates with your content.
- Authentic Recommendations: Influencers build trust with their audience by sharing genuine experiences and opinions. Their recommendations carry weight, influencing followers to consider booking, as they value the influencer’s judgment.
- Luxury Brand Association: Partnering with luxury or niche influencers can position your hotel as a premium destination.
- Enhanced Customer Trust: Influencer endorsements enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of your hotel brand.
- Targeted Reach and Engagement: Influencers can target specific demographics that align with your hotel’s target market, focusing on individuals more likely to be interested in your offerings.
- Event Promotion: Influencers can effectively promote special events and drive attendance.
- Increased Press Coverage: Influencers can attract additional media attention, amplifying overall marketing efforts.
- Global Reach: International influencers can attract foreign visitors by showcasing your hotel to a worldwide audience.
- Seasonal Campaign Support: Influencers can promote off-peak season visits to boost year-round occupancy.
Crafting a Hotel Influencer Marketing Strategy: 6 Essential Questions
Jumping into hotel influencer marketing without a clear strategy can lead to mistakes. Before you begin, define your objectives and target audience. For example, an influencer known for gaming may not be the best fit for promoting a luxury spa.
Here are six key questions to guide your influencer marketing campaign:
1. What Are Your Objectives and Target Demographic?
Common objectives for hotel influencer marketing campaigns include:
- Improving brand awareness.
- Increasing website traffic.
- Driving bookings.
- Growing social media followers.
- Advertising specific rooms or amenities.
- Attracting specific clientele, such as wedding guests.
2. Which Platform Should You Target?
Instagram is a popular social media platform for hotel influencer marketing. Its emphasis on visual content makes it ideal for showcasing hotels. Video content, like Reels, is particularly effective for showcasing locations and amenities.
Consider working with influencers active on other platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. YouTube is suitable for high-quality video content with lasting views. TikTok is popular among younger travelers, but standing out can be challenging. Facebook caters to older demographics, although content discovery can be harder.
Choose a platform you are familiar with and that aligns with your brand. Running campaigns across multiple platforms is possible but may require working with influencers specializing in different platforms.
3. Which Influencers Best Align With Your Objectives?
The abundance of social media influencers makes finding the right fit challenging. While some influencers may offer content in exchange for a free stay, careful research is crucial.
Consider the type of content needed to meet your objectives. Do you need a blogger to drive website traffic or an Instagram influencer to boost followers?
When researching influencers, consider the following:
- Does their content match your brand’s style?
- Who is their audience?
- Do they have an engaged audience?
- What is their reputation?
- What type of content do they specialize in?
- What is their audience demographic?
Key criteria for finding the right influencer include:
- Content quality
- Relevance and alignment with brand values
- Authenticity and engagement rate
- Location
- Age of the influencer
- Interests (budget trips, luxury travel, lifestyle content)
- Engagement rate (genuine engagement from real people)
4. What Content Should They Share?
Once you’ve found the right influencer, create a detailed creative brief outlining campaign goals, key messages, deliverables, and guidelines. A concise brief allows influencers to effectively communicate your brand message. Define the desired call to action, whether it’s a discount code, booking link, or limited-time offer.
5. How Can You Strategically Amplify Content Through Social Media Ads?
Strategic amplification of influencer content allows you to connect with a broader segment of your ideal audience, inspiring them to engage with your brand and take action.
Promoting influencer content across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube can drive bookings, boost brand awareness, and foster meaningful connections with potential guests.
6. How Will You Measure Campaign Success?
Monitor and analyze campaign performance using analytic tools to gather data on impressions, reach, engagement, click-through rates, conversions, bookings, and purchase value. This data helps you understand what worked well and identify areas for improvement in future campaigns.
Exploring Different Types of Influencers
With millions of influencers worldwide, ranging from nano and micro-influencers to mid-tier, macro, and mega-influencers, there’s someone perfectly suited for your brand.
Nano and micro-influencers (1,000 to 50,000 followers) often accept a free stay in exchange for content, while larger accounts (50,000 to over a million followers) may require payment for their reach. However, a large following doesn’t always guarantee better results. Niche micro-influencers can be more authentic and have more engaged followers.
Relatability often outweighs popularity. Studies show that relatability is more important than popularity in attracting 18-to-34-year-olds to influencers. While mega-influencers reach larger audiences, don’t overlook the power of nano and micro-influencers in driving engagement.
Understanding Influencer Marketing Costs
Influencer campaigns are adaptable to various budgets. Costs vary based on the influencer’s type, their following, and campaign expectations.
Hotels can inquire about costs by contacting influencers directly or through marketplaces like TikTok’s Creator Marketplace. Collaborating with an agency can help you select influencers aligned with your objectives and assist with campaign creation and management.
Examples of Successful Hotel Influencer Campaigns
Pennyhill Park Hotel
- 111 Pieces of content
- 9.5M Reach & impressions
- 134K Engagements
- 14.8 X Return on ad spend
Pennyhill Park, a luxury hotel and spa in Surrey, sought to boost awareness and showcase the customer experience through influencer content.
Key luxury lifestyle and travel influencers were invited to stay and create content, amplified through social media advertising campaigns.
The campaign produced 111 pieces of content across Instagram and TikTok, generating over 9.5 million views and 134,000 engagements, resulting in a 14.8x return on ad spend.
South Lodge Hotel & Spa
- 86 Pieces of content
- 4m Reach and impressions
- 66,500+ Engagements
- 1 x Return on ad spend
South Lodge, a luxury spa hotel in Sussex, aimed to raise brand awareness and showcase its offerings.
Local influencers were chosen to create engaging content to increase social media engagement, website traffic, and bookings.
Influencers accessed personalized invitations and creative briefs, and content was amplified through social media ads.
The campaign produced 86 pieces of content across Instagram and TikTok, reaching over 9.4 million people and generating over 66,500 engagements, resulting in a 9.1x return on ad spend.
Manor House
- 158 Pieces of content
- 5m Reach and impressions
- 287,000+ Engagements
- 8 x Return on ad spend
The Manor House, a 14th-century luxury hotel and golf club, aimed to increase awareness, tap into new audiences, and drive online bookings.
Luxury lifestyle and travel influencers were invited to experience the hotel, and content was guided by personalized invitations and creative briefs.
Social media advertising campaigns targeted key audiences, boosting reach and driving traffic to the website, resulting in increased bookings.
Lainston House
- 108 Pieces of content
- 4m Reach and impressions
- 6k+ Engagements
- 5 x Return on ad spend
Lainston House, a 17th-century luxury hotel, sought to increase awareness and drive online bookings.
Influencers were invited to visit the hotel, and the campaign included personalized invitations and creative briefs.
Social media advertising campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok amplified content and drove awareness, engagement, website traffic, and bookings.
Unlock the Benefits of Hotel Influencer Marketing
Standing out and attracting travelers to your hotel is increasingly challenging. Showcasing beautiful experiences and engaging content on social media is a powerful way to entice potential guests. Combine this with the trust, authenticity, and relatability of influencers for optimal results.
Partnering with the right influencer creates engaging content that positions your hotel as a must-visit destination.
