Most travel influencer marketing advice stops at "work with micro-influencers" and "be authentic". We wanted to see what the biggest travel brands actually do, so we pulled the 50 most recent sponsored posts for each of the most-searched travel brands in the US and looked at who posted, how each deal was disclosed, and which posts took off.

Here's why travel brands work with creators, the commonalities in their strategy, and a step-by-step way to run your own campaign.

Why travel brands use influencer marketing

Creators do a few things for travel brands that ads and product pages can't:

• Loyalty programs need explaining. Most travelers don't know what their points or miles can do until someone shows them. 15 of American Airlines' last 50 sponsored posts mention AAdvantage, from earning miles on date-night dinners to rental cars.
• Parents want proof it can be done. Flying with kids feels hard until a parent shows it working. A United post about a 10-month-old with Global Entry and a passport got 2.7M plays.
• A fare sale gives people a reason to book now. A deal with dates turns "someday" into this week. A Southwest post about one-way flights from $39 to celebrate 20 years in Denver, from a creator with 52k followers, got 98k plays.
• A trip with a story gets shared. People share trips that mean something to the person taking them. Expedia's post about giving a mom the chance to take her kids to Europe for the first time got 2.4M plays and 208k likes.

Top travel brands using influencer marketing

These are the most-searched travel brands in the US, according to Ahrefs. Deal types show how each post was disclosed (for example, with a paid partnership label or an ambassador hashtag). Creator tiers: micro 10k–50k followers, mid-tier 50k–500k, macro 500k+.

1. Airbnb: a World Cup show with Rio Ferdinand

35 of Airbnb's last 50 sponsored posts come from former footballer Rio Ferdinand and his co-hosts, who reacted to World Cup matches, interviewed former players and vlogged their trip in partnership with Airbnb. Another 10 show stays, like a château booked by the group chat or a loft in Vancouver. All 50 went live between June 13 and July 1, only 17 creators made them, and none use a code. Its creators are based in the US (8), the UK (4) and Sweden (2).

• Creators: @rioferdy5 (6.7M), @juliaadang (182k) and @rioferdinandpresents (715k) are among the creators who've posted for Airbnb.
• How posts were disclosed: 50 paid partnership

What to take from it: Back a show fans already watch, and let the host keep their voice. Rio Ferdinand's reaction to a Cristiano Ronaldo goal got 2.5M plays and 431k likes from an account with 715k followers, Airbnb's most-viewed post.

2. American Airlines: World Cup trips and a 100th birthday

American's last 50 sponsored posts lean on big moments. 9 mention the World Cup, with creators flying to games in Boston, Los Angeles and Vancouver, and 9 celebrate its 100th year, 4 of them from a Dallas Mavericks game. It works almost only with US creators (31 of the 33 with a location), 48 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and none include a discount code.

• Creators: @fabriziorom (46.8M), @cass_andthecity (185k) and @jaytorrez (904k) are among the creators who've posted for American Airlines.
• How posts were disclosed: 48 paid partnership, 1 ambassador, 1 gifted

What to take from it: Let creators mark your milestones in their own voice. A creator with 904k followers wished American a happy 100th birthday in Spanish, and it got 522k plays and 35k likes, the most of any of its anniversary posts.

3. United Airlines: the first flight on every new route

11 of United's last 50 sponsored posts come from inaugural flights and new routes, from Newark to Bari and Split to a new route to Adelaide and the first flight of its new Elevated Dreamliner to Singapore. 4 more come from behind-the-scenes airport tours at SFO and O'Hare. 37 of its 38 creators with a location are in the US, 48 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and none use a code.

• Creators: @simonebiles (11.9M), @findingfiona__ (259k) and @lilmsawkward (109k) are among the creators who've posted for United Airlines.
• How posts were disclosed: 48 paid partnership, 1 gifted, 1 unspecified

What to take from it: Announce new routes the way travelers search for them. @lilmsawkward called United's new nonstop to Adelaide "the largest U.S. carrier to Australia," and the post got 9.3k plays and 493 likes from a creator with 109k followers.

4. Southwest Airlines: one city, many local creators

11 of Southwest's last 50 sponsored posts come from Austin creators, who all posted between April 29 and May 1 to promote its nonstop flights from the city, from a 30A beach weekend to sweets in Las Vegas. Another 9 are holiday posts where creators passed a Southwest gift on to someone they love (#SouthwestUnwrapTheJoy). All 35 creators with a location are in the US, all 50 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and none use a code.

• Creators: @retirementhouse (2.6M), @365thingsaustin (499k) and @madwinegirl (39k) are among the creators who've posted for Southwest Airlines.
• How posts were disclosed: 50 paid partnership

What to take from it: Tell followers about a perk they didn't know existed. A creator with 39k followers explained Southwest's Sip & Ship program, which lets you check a full case of wine on select West Coast flights, and the post got 4.2M plays, Southwest's most-viewed.

5. Expedia: an ambassador class with its own events

30 of Expedia's last 50 sponsored posts carry #ExpediaAmbassador or #EGAmbassador, though only 17 were labeled as ambassador posts. 8 come from its Priority Access and Expedia Explore partner events, where creators previewed new app features, and 6 are from Budapest, including a series built around Liverpool FC players' favorite spots in the city. Its creators are based in the US (20), the UK (3), Canada (2) and Australia (2), and none use a code.

• Creators: @mdmotivator (9.5M), @reneeroaming (920k) and @dabronco0 (32k) are among the creators who've posted for Expedia.
• How posts were disclosed: 33 paid partnership, 17 ambassador

What to take from it: Give a creator a series, not a single post. A creator with 32k followers tasting Hungarian food for Expedia's Budapest series got 860k plays, about 27 times their following.

What the top travel brands have in common

Looking across all 250 posts, four patterns stand out:

• The World Cup took over the summer. 44 of the 250 posts mention the World Cup, from Airbnb's match reactions to fans flying to games with American.
• Smaller creators get more out of their audience. Across 223 posts with visible likes, creators under 50k followers got a median of 0.9% of their followers liking the post. For creators above 50k, it was 0.4%.
• Nobody uses discount codes. None of the 250 posts include a discount code. Travel brands send followers to book in the app or through a link instead.
• They book established creators. Only 20 of the 158 creators with a listed follower count have under 50k followers.

How to run a travel influencer marketing campaign

Here's how to run a campaign step by step, using what the top travel brands do at each stage.

1. Pick one goal and one metric

Decide what the campaign is for before you pick a single creator, because the goal changes who you book, how you pay them and what you ask them to post. The top travel brands' posts show both goals at work. Southwest's status match posts and Expedia's Bundle & Save posts are built to drive bookings. Southwest's college hoops street interviews and United's Hallmark Channel mini movie are built for reach.

• Sales: track revenue per creator with a unique link and code.
• Awareness: track views, saves and reach per post.
• Loyalty sign-ups: if you run a rewards program, like Southwest's Rapid Rewards status match, give each creator a tracked sign-up link and count new members per creator.

Pick one metric per campaign so you can compare creators fairly afterwards.

2. Find and vet creators who fit your brand

Follower count is the last thing to filter on. A creator with 23k followers posted about flying Flagship First with American on a honeymoon and got 85k plays, nearly four times their following, because couples planning a big trip are the people who book premium seats. Across all five brands, creators under 50k followers got about twice the likes relative to their audience.

Our survey found niche micro-creators are outperforming mega-influencers: nearly 60% of marketers said niche influencers performed better in 2025 than in 2024.

• Write down who travels with you (families flying with kids, points collectors, couples planning a honeymoon) and look for creators living that life.
• Search Modash's database of 380M+ creators and filter by audience demographics (age, gender, location), bio keywords, engagement rate and fake-follower checks.
• Or describe that creator in plain language, like "parents who post tips for flying with a baby", and Modash's AI creator search surfaces matching creators on the platform you're searching.

• Check who else they've posted for. @carter.kale2 posted for both Airbnb and American Airlines, and @theaustintourist for both Southwest and Expedia. Modash shows which brands a creator has already posted sponsored content for.

You can also find travel influencers for free, for example by searching the hashtags your buyers follow.

3. Choose the deal type

Travel brands pay per post. Airbnb and Southwest disclosed all 50 of their last 50 posts as paid partnerships, and American and United 48 each. Expedia is the exception, with 17 labeled as ambassador posts.

• Gifting works for holiday moments, like Southwest's posts where creators passed a Southwest gift on to someone they love.
• Paid posts suit anything with a date, like a new route, a fare sale or a big game.
• Affiliate works for bookings people can make any time, like hotels, tours or trip bundles, through a creator's own link.
• Ambassador deals suit travel creators who take trips all year, like Expedia's ambassadors, who post from Japan to Peru under the same hashtag.

Commission-only is getting harder to sell, though. Over 23% of marketers in our survey said creators would take performance pay only if a flat fee came with it. If you run tiers, the average commission tiers in our affiliate research were 10%, 14% and 19%, and brands with more than one tier had more active affiliates.

4. Brief the content formats that work in travel

The captions from the top travel brands point to three formats that carry most of their creator content:

• Itineraries. United's creators post full trip plans, like a 5-day Bari itinerary or 10 days driving New Zealand's North Island. Ask for a plan followers can save and follow.
• First looks. United's creators tested its new Starlink Wi-Fi and Elevated cabins before most passengers had tried them. Give creators early access to whatever is new on board or in the app.
• Behind the scenes. United took creators behind the scenes at SFO and O'Hare to show what happens after you check a bag. Show the part of the trip travelers never see.

Whatever the format, give creators the exact route or destination, the dates any offer runs, and one partner hashtag like #UnitedPartner or #SouthwestPartner.

5. Launch with tracked links and time-limited codes

The top travel brands send people to a booking, not a code. Southwest's creators asked followers to comment a word like "STATUS" to get the link in 4 posts, and Expedia's pushed Bundle & Save in 4.

Codes also leak. In our affiliate marketing research, 47.6% of marketers said they struggle with code poaching, where a creator's code ends up on coupon sites.

• Give every creator a tracked link for everyday posts, and add a code only for launches and sales.
• Put an end date in the caption so followers know the offer won't last.
• If creators use "comment for the link", make sure the link they send by DM is their tracked link.

In Modash, each creator gets a tracked link and a code tied to your Shopify data, so sales from DMs, bios and stories all count toward the right person. Commission is calculated on net revenue after refunds and returns.

6. Rebook your best creators

The top travel brands bring some creators back: 42 of their 163 creators posted more than once, like Expedia's @reneeroaming with five posts. That matters in travel, where followers trust a creator who has already flown the route or stayed at the place, and every new trip gives them something fresh to post.

Most marketers want to do more of this. In our influencer marketing trends survey, over 60% said they plan to invest more in long-term partnerships, but only 54% actually ran more of them last year.

• Start new creators on a single post, then offer a longer deal to the ones who hit your metric from step 1.
• Use revenue per creator, not likes, to decide who gets rebooked. Modash's campaign dashboard shows revenue, orders and ROAS for each creator.
• Give rebooked creators something new each time, like a new route, a new destination or a seasonal sale, so their posts don't repeat.

Where travel creator programs go wrong

The top brands avoid a few mistakes that trip up smaller programs:

• Posting after people have booked. Most trips are booked weeks or months ahead, so a summer post that goes live in July reaches people who already have plans. Brief creators in spring for summer travel and in early fall for the holidays.
• Offering commission-only deals to established creators. In our survey, 63% of marketers said influencers were open to becoming affiliates in 2024. In 2025 that fell to 26%. When you reach out to established creators, offer a flat fee plus commission rather than commission alone.
• Running the affiliate program on autopilot. In our affiliate research, marketers who were "very involved" with their affiliates had 71.5% of them active. "Very hands-off" marketers had 10%. Affiliates post when you give them a reason to, so check in every month with something new to share. For travel, that could be a new route, a fare sale, or a destination to cover.
• Sending affiliates old product. 93% of marketers gift products to affiliates, but almost 30% don't refresh them when something new launches. Tell your affiliates about every new route, sale and app feature before it launches.
• Quoting fares without the fine print. A fare or saving in a caption is an ad claim, and travel prices change by date and route. Give creators the exact terms to include, like Southwest's "Terms apply" or Expedia's "Members only. Savings vary.", and check captions before they go live.

FAQ

How much does travel influencer marketing cost?

It depends on platform, following and engagement. Micro-influencers often work for free product plus a fee in the low hundreds per post, or an affiliate commission. Larger creators charge more. Many brands start with gifting plus commission to test fit before committing to flat fees. To estimate what a specific creator is likely to charge, drop their handle into our free Instagram influencer pricing calculator.

Which platform is best for travel influencer marketing?

Instagram carries most travel creator work, and every sponsored post we analyzed for the five most-searched travel brands ran there. TikTok is worth testing too: in our survey, marketers rated TikTok videos the highest-performing deliverable (53.2%).

Which travel brands use influencer marketing?

Airbnb, American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Expedia are the most-searched travel brands in the US, and all of them run active creator programs. See the breakdown above for who each one works with.

Should travel brands work with micro or macro influencers?

It depends on your goal. A launch chasing awareness leans bigger, a conversion play leans smaller and more trusted. In the travel posts we analyzed, creators under 50k followers got about twice the likes relative to their audience size, so most brands should build their base with micro-influencers (10k–50k followers) and add bigger names for launches.

How do I measure travel influencer marketing?

Track sales per creator with unique links and codes, then compare revenue against what you paid (fees, product and commission). Our engagement rate calculator and fake follower checker help you vet creators before you spend, and our guide to influencer marketing ROI covers the full calculation.

Start your travel creator program

Find creators, manage relationships, pay them in 180+ countries and 36 currencies, and track every sale through Shopify – all in one place, with no fees taken out of creators' pay. Try Modash free, no credit card required – or browse the top travel influencers to see who's already out there.