In recent years, influencers have been able to curate content for countless different genres in media. Internet influencing and UGC [User Generated Content] has become a rather popular profession over the years, and has proved to be a useful asset for large companies when it comes to marketing their products or services. One rapidly growing genre when it comes to influencing is travel. While traveling is a common niche among social media influencers, this new generation of content creators seem to appeal to a much larger audience. It seems that whenever someone is planning on traveling to a new destination, they head over to TikTok and scroll through different travel content. This content could range from videos featuring the inside of rooms at a new resort, budgeting advice for travelers, or restaurant recommendations in a given area. The variety that is possible within this genre makes travel influencers the new ultimate hospitality hub.
For this assignment, I will be focusing my research solely on TikTok. Since the COVID pandemic in 2020, Tik Tok has grown to be an enormous platform with over 1 billion users worldwide. It seems that the app has the power to bring overnight fame to its content creators, and companies have begun to take notice. Many of these companies actually employ influencers and pay them to share content pertaining to their business. This ranges throughout all types of business — in this case for resorts and restaurants. Depending on the outreach and quality of content, these influencers can charge anywhere from $5 to $5,000 per sponsored or branded content. This is true for travel influencers as well, who often score free stays at hotels and paid promotion in exchange for posts. When it comes to traveling influencers, TikTok is a preferred platform due to its short video template and ability to reach such a large audience. While travel content creators are on almost every social media platform including Instagram, Youtube, etc — TikTok seems to be the most successful platform among creators.
The seemingly common theme within travel TikTok usually entails a creator taking a short video, anywhere from 30 second to 3 minutes long — sharing the details of their travel accommodations. This could be via a video walk through tour of their hotel, daily itinerary recommendations, or recommendations of local restaurants and other intriguing places within the destination.
TikTok user theshayspence, otherwise known as Shay Spence, creates travel content all over the world — but is primarily covering destinations in his home state Florida. Some of his most popular videos come from his series “Staying at Every Disney World Resort”. In these videos, Spence shares video tours of different Disney World resorts covering every aspect from location of the resort, to the inside of the hotel room and the local restaurants best menu items f. By showing details both big and small, this content allows the audience to formulate their own opinions about the destination. Typically, consumers like to get a glimpse of hotel and resort accommodations prior to traveling to know what they are getting. While hotel and resort websites have always had photo galleries available on their website, the new genre of travel influencers allow the viewer to have an even more in depth insight when it comes to choosing where to vacation.
While review and rating videos seem to be the most popular theme amongst travel TikTok, other influencers have used their creativity and personal experiences to defy this standard. The Tik Tok user travelingwithsamantha uses her platform to educate eager young travelers when it comes to solo traveling tips. Additionally, her page is filled with aesthetic videos featuring highlights of the beautiful destinations she travels to. While these types of videos steer away from the typical norms like the previous example, they are nevertheless important to the genre. It seems that these types of videos in recent years have spiked the interest in travel for the new generation of users on TikTok. This side of travel Tik Tok romanticizes the concept of travel and the self discovery that comes along with the adventure. These videos encourage viewers to want to travel and channel their inner “Eat Pray Love” energy.
While everything seems perfect when it comes to travel TikTok, there are certain limitations when it comes to the effectiveness of the content. While TikTok’s algorithm does a great job of reaching a rather personalized audience — not all videos fall perfectly onto a given person’s home page. For instance, a review of a high end, five star resort may end up on the homepage of a person who is not able to afford luxury travel. Therefore, this content could potentially fail to reach its target market since they can not easily pick and choose who sees the content. Just because a travel video ends up on someone’s for you page does not mean that they will engage with the content.
Additionally, travel TikTokers have several other platforms they have to compete with. There are travel influencers on almost every social media platform. Specifically two large competitors for travel TikTok are Youtubers and Bloggers. TikToks short video format struggles to give the viewer as much information in one video as Youtube is able to do. On Youtube, content creators have the ability to sit down and film videos without time constraint. Additionally, Youtube content creators are able to form a stronger bond with their audience because they often film videos as if they are having a direct conversion with the viewer. Forms of travel content on Youtube include “Pack with me” videos, where a creator films themselves packing for a vacation — highlighting and recommending all of their travel essentials.
Travel bloggers have been around for countless years, and are arguably the starting platform for the travel influencers we know today. Since having a blog requires having a website domain [or being a part of a publishing platform] — bloggers are at an advantage. If someone is looking to travel to a specific destination, especially an older audience who may not have social media, they are likely to go to Google to search for information. Upon this search, they are likely to discover bloggers who specialize in particular niches, such as destinations like Hawaii, cruise ship guides or even cheap flight hacks.
