3 Travel Brands Taking Off with Influencer Marketing
In 2025, the global travel and tourism industry is projected to soar to nearly $956 billion in revenue, growing at a 3.91% rate annually. This means there’s a world of opportunity for travel brands, whether you’re a hotel chain, airline, booking app, or anything in between.
But only a select few brands stand out from the crowd, attracting travelers (and market share) through savvy influencer marketing strategies.
In this 3-part series, we’re exploring how travel brands are harnessing the power of influencer content to stand out. In Part 1, we uncovered 5 influencer marketing best practices tailored to travel brands. Now, in Part 2, we’re spotlighting three brands leading the charge: Best Western, Expedia, and Monos.
Let’s take a look.
Best Western
For Best Western, reshaping public perception has meant more than just updated signage or room renovations. The brand leverages creator partnerships and social storytelling to showcase their 18 distinct hotel offerings, from budget-friendly classics to boutique luxury experiences.
With the goal of positioning Best Western as the bridge to your next adventure — not just a place to sleep — Emily Huffer, Senior Marketing Manager EMEA at BWH Hotels, has transformed Best Western’s brand narrative through an ambitious influencer marketing strategy.
With over 4,000 properties worldwide, Emily knew she couldn’t rely solely on in-house content. Instead, she tapped into platforms like Aspire to find creators who could tell localized, authentic stories that resonate with specific audiences. Whether it’s showcasing pet-friendly stays or boutique charm, Best Western’s influencer content is reshaping how people perceive the brand — especially on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where short-form travel content is king.
For example, Best Western’s viral partnership with @WeRateDogs told the story of Stella, a rescue pup journeying across the US to her forever home — stopping to rest at Best Western properties along the way.
The campaign generated some remarkable results:
- 900+ loyalty program signups
- 5 million+ impressions
- 14% engagement rate
Expedia
Expedia Group knows that creators today are the go-to travel advisors, who dish out the best tips and recommendations. For years, the travel technology brand has had #EGambassadors posting their favorite travel hacks all over social media, all while using Expedia.
But to further capitalize on these trusted recommendations, Expedia Group recently launched Travel Shops, giving their influencer partners a sleek, branded space to showcase their favorite stays, while earning commission on every booking.
In addition to influencer content on Instagram and TikTok, Travel Shops offer a permanent home for influencers’ travel recommendations, directly within the Expedia app and website. Think of it like a shoppable storefront for globe-trotters, curated by each influencer based on their personal taste and interests.
Take @ReneeRoaming, for example. Known for her visually stunning adventures and practical travel tips, Renee’s curated Travel Shop features handpicked destinations from Patagonia to French Polynesia. Her followers can scroll, swoon, and book — all in one place.
According to Expedia’s Lauri Metrose, the strategy taps into an existing behavior: “Every day, people are liking and buying products recommended by influencers they trust, but until now there hasn’t been a simple way to shop travel recommendations. Travelers are already getting inspiration through Instagram and TikTok, so creating a path to go from looking to booking is a natural evolution that meets travelers where they’re at.”
Pro tip: To create your brand’s version of Travel Shops, you can leverage a tool like Aspire’s CreatorStores to seamlessly build branded storefronts curated by your influencers. Learn more here.
Monos
Known for their sleek, high-performance luggage and accessories, Monos quickly gained viral traction on social media. But as the brand scaled, they faced a common challenge: how to expand their influencer marketing without losing the authenticity that made them so beloved in the first place.
With ROI as his north star, Matt Roy, Influencer Marketing Lead at Monos, reimagined the brand’s influencer strategy to balance personalization with performance — using Aspire to build a program that drives real business impact while maintaining creator relationships that feel anything but transactional.
Instead of one-size-fits-all campaigns, Monos runs three distinct tracks:
- Always-on gifting: An evergreen product seeding program at Monos helps keep costs low, even when partnering with macro-influencers who generate high-quality, high-visibility content that can be repurposed into paid ads.
- UGC engine: Monos runs a second always-on program focused on generating user-generated content (UGC) from nano and micro-influencers. Aspire’s reverse Image Search Tool quickly finds creators that match the brand’s aesthetic.
- Ambassador program: Matt cherry-picks a few top creators based on performance and invites them to work on long-term paid partnerships. This is not only a way to reward creators who produce high-quality UGC and ads that perform well, but it’s also an opportunity for the brand to build meaningful relationships with creators who help Monos achieve tangible business goals.
This structured approach not only generated buzz, but also fuels multiple arms of the Monos business. From saving thousands on production costs to supplying the creative and performance teams with high-converting content, influencers have become a cornerstone of Monos’ marketing flywheel.
The results speak for themselves:
- 20x ROI from paid and gifting campaigns
- Thousands saved in content creation costs
- 1.8K pieces of content
Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series, where we’ll break down everything brands need to know about working with travel influencers.
