Finding creative marketing ideas for hotels to attract guests is easier with the help of influencers who offer new perspectives and fresh content. The hospitality industry is highly competitive, which makes winning over potential guests a challenge. For independent hotels and boutiques with limited staff, influencers can help fill in gaps and provide the authentic content social audiences crave. Millennials travel more than any other generation, and nearly half of all Gen Zers list travel as a top priority. A strong social media presence with genuine influencer content can help attract younger hotel guests who look to these personalities for travel recommendations. Learn everything you need to know about influencer marketing for hotels below:

How Can Hotels Leverage Influencer Marketing?

Hotels can leverage influencer marketing through paid partnerships and collaborative projects that showcase the property highlights and the guest experience. Most travel influencers have a legion of followers who trust their opinions on hotels and destinations. Hoteliers can leverage this relationship to boost off-peak reservations or secure bookings for a new property. Several post types—giveaways, follower discount codes, guest posting, and sponsored posts, for example—can be effective in marketing campaigns, especially when each influencer adds a personal spin.

Hotel Influencer FAQs

If you have questions, you’re not alone. Influencer marketing is relatively new for most hoteliers but its early success indicates this tactic won’t be going away anytime soon. Influencers’ creative marketing ideas for hotels can help your brand stand out, and these pros bring a ready-made audience with them, too.

Why Should Hotels Work With Influencers?

It is difficult to overstate the importance of social media marketing for hotels, and partnering with an influencer is an easy way to get your brand noticed across platforms, including those you may not be savvy about yet. The fresh marketing ideas and original content stand out amongst the crowd, and the influencer’s long list of followers has already been won over for you. Influencer marketing doesn’t have to be a one-and-done arrangement, so hoteliers can invite these partners to experiential marketing events or yearly engagements to help foster repeat business.

How Do Hotels Work With Influencers?

The most efficient way for a hotel to work with an influencer is to seek assistance from an agency with influencer experience. While these genuine social media posts seem easygoing and spontaneous, the behind-the-scenes arrangements include contracts and details that are much more complex. 

Brands working with these influencers have likely done a lot of leg work to find the advertiser and get them under contract. Agencies with influencer experience can streamline the process of finding a marketer with a point of view that’s relevant to your hotel brand, destination, or niche to make sure the collaboration or partnership draws in qualified leads likely to convert.

Why Is Influencer Marketing Important in the Hospitality Industry?

Standing out in the competitive hospitality industry is difficult without fresh, compelling content, and influencers’ engaging posts give hotels an edge. Content created by influencers accomplishes marketing objectives, like increasing brand awareness and providing social proof, faster and more effectively than a branded ad, because the audience trusts what these marketers have to say. Boutique hotels and independent properties without many resources can use influencer marketing campaigns to grow the brand’s audience with less time commitment than doing this organically requires. 

How Much Do Hotels Pay Influencers?

The cost of influencer marketing for hotels can vary from a compensated room to thousands of dollars per post. The projected impact the person’s post is likely to make on the hotel, their followers, the quality of the content, and other factors determines the cost a hotel will ultimately pay for an influencer engagement. A nano-influencer with fewer than 10,000 followers may accept a free night’s stay in exchange for advertorial content, while a mega influencer with a cult-like following may charge a hotel thousands of dollars per post.

---