It’s no secret that influencer marketing has already proved its worth to many players in the travel industry.
After analyzing a number of campaigns carried out in recent years for destinations, airlines and tour operators, we have selected 10 that stand out for their originality, creativity and impact.
Influencer marketing is now an essential lever for visibility and brand awareness, and it would be a shame to miss out on it, as the tourism industry has clearly understood.
Discover our selection of 10 influencer campaigns from the tourism sector that have made their mark on your social networks.
1 round-the-world internship, 1 100K job, 3 movie outings, 19 French cities, 1 4-legged traveler, top 10 most audacious projects :
1 – The most publicized
100 days of polar night magic Visit Finland in partnership with Finnair invited a host of nature-loving and outdoor influencers from the destination’s target countries to come and discover and experience 3 incredible months in Finland.
The aim: to create original and inspiring content to highlight the appeal of the winter destination.
More than 4,000 people applied, and 5 lucky people were chosen to go to Finland.
Visit Finland took the project a step further by producing a weekly web series filming the 5 influencers.
This campaign was covered by a total of 808 media outlets. In addition, during the operation, the VisitFinland website was visited 641,500 times and the videos wereviewed 781,600 times. 100 days of polar night magic created a large amount ofcontent that could be reused by the destination.
2 – The most innovative
Bruno Maltor’s Best Internship in the World: In 2016, travel blogger Bruno Maltor launched his search for an intern to accompany him on his travels, all paid at €1,000 gross per month, with a pied-à-terre in Prague.
He then put out a call for applications for this tempting internship offer on his social networks, notably through this video, insisting on a single criterion: creativity.
The campaign was produced in partnership with AccorHotels.
After receiving over 800 video submissions, the jury worked together to select 5 finalists.
They were invited to an AccorHotels showroom for individual interviews with the jury, which included Bruno Maltor, digital marketing experts and a traveler.
And in the end it was Sarah, a master’s student in audiovisual communication management, who was the chosen one and began her 6-month internship in February 2017 with Bruno Maltor.
The travel blogger will then take her along on his influencer operations to create content.
She will be featured in his Instagram stories or Youtube videos.
This search for an intern for “the best internship in the world” enabled Bruno Maltor to create a buzz thanks to the press relays of numerous media such as Konbini, Le Figaro, L’adn, Le Bonbon, Le Quotidien du tourisme, Tourmag, and the list goes on…
The campaign was a huge success.
3 – The most global
Best Job in the world Best Jobers In June 2013, Elisa won “Best Job in the world”, a competition organized by the Australian Tourism Board.
The campaign went around the world, with Australia receiving no fewer than 330,000 applications from 196 different countries. Elisa and Max, the French couple who won the job, flew to Australia for 6 months.
It was from there that their lives took a turn and they became travel bloggers.
They would work for the Australian destination, creating content, storytelling and e-influence.
Their main mission: to make people dream on social networks and through a travel blog.
4 – The greediest
#Eurofoodtrip Two European regions, Costa Brava in Spain and Emilia Romagna, have collaborated to create an influencer campaign with the aim of becoming the best gourmet destinations in Europe.
Both regions boast an authentic taste identity and a rich cultural and natural heritage.
To highlight these assets, they first created a blog dedicated to the food and wine of Emilia Romagna and the Costa Brava.
Then, they selected 5 bloggers and 1 videographer from different countries (France, Italy, Germany, USA, Canada) to come and live a blogtrip in the 2 places.
Their missions: share their experiences live on social networks, write articles on their blogs and finally provide free-to-use high-definition photos of the 2 regions.
On the web-escapades blog, you’ll find all the articles written for the French market.
You can also watch the videos on the Costa Brava Pirineu de Girona Youtube channel.
5 – The fakest
Fyre Festival Perhaps you’ve watched the Netflix documentary tracing the history of this controversial festival?
If not, we’ve got a quick recap for you: the Fyre festival was held on a private island in the Bahamas in 2017, planning a line-up of very famous artists and a luxury experience.
Tickets ranged from $400 to $25,000.
To get the word out about his event, Billy McFarland, CEO of Fyre festival, relied on his influencer campaign.
He called on a large number of influencers, including celebrities (Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid…), paying them in exchange for photo posts announcing the event and inviting their communities to take part.
On December 12, 63 influencers posted simultaneously on Instagram: an orange square with the hashtag #fyrefest, which was subsequently relayed by 400 influencers.
In all, 300 million impressions in 24 hours.
The campaign was a global success. 
A highly successful campaign that went around the world and sold out the event… but a failure once on site!
The festival turned out to be a scam for participants, as the organization never had the means to realize its ambitions.
Legal action was taken against the event’s creators.
A campaign that will undoubtedly have left its mark!
6 – The most inspiring
Worldelse’s Tour de France For the launch of Remarkable France, a project created by Atout France and Sites & Cités remarquables de France, Pauline and Benoît, photographers and travel bloggers, created content to highlight 19 towns in the national network of Sites & Cités remarquables de France.
Pauline and Benoît’s photos were featured on the France.fr website.
The 19 towns include Ardennes Métropole, Lunéville, Dax, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges and Grand Figeac.
7 – The most offbeat
Transavia #VeryBadPic In 2018, airline Transavia launched an Instagram contest with a creative, offbeat concept.
The aim?
Invite Instagrammers to share their worst travel photos with the hashtag #VeryBadPic with the reward for the worst photo: a round-trip plane ticket for two people (3 winners).
For Transavia, the objective of this campaign was to increase its community on the network and thus develop its visibility.
To get the word out about this contest, they collaborated with influencers who shared a photo of a failed trip: @alicemechani, @lestudiodanielle, @alexvizeo, @enjoyphoenix… 
What’s more, the operation aroused the interest of numerous media outlets, including Madame le Figaro, L’adn and Melty.
8 – The most adventurous
Chapka, generation trilogy around the world.
Génération Tour du monde are productions by the Coflocs (Florian Mosca and Laurent Lingelser) and co-produced by main sponsor Chapka Assurances, specialists in travel insurance, working holiday visas and round-the-world trips.The first “Génération working holidays”, the second is “Génération Expat” and finally the 3rd part “Génération tour du monde” released in 2019.
In their videos, which could be called web documentaries, they meet travelers who recount their period of itinerancy, their life transition, their adventures…
After one-shot releases on the big screen, each video is put online on Youtube, with a total of 1,580,051 views for the 3 videos on the Chapka Assurances channel.
A great success for these operations and a great increase in Chapka’s notoriety.
9 – The boldest
Little Gypsy, traveling with your dog by TGV 🐶 Morgane, better known as Little Gypsy, has created a campaign with TGV to promote the possibility of traveling with your dog throughout Europe.
To do this, she set off with Ayko from Marseille.
She has written an article on her blog in which she gives advice and talks about the conditions for being able to transport her dog on board the TGV.
She also publishes Instagram posts and a video shared on her Youtube channel. 
10 – The most European
Interrail – Eurotrip In July 2018, Interrail partnered with destination Czech Republic and Poland to organize an influencer campaign with 3 travel influencers: WorldElse, Travel Me Happy and Little Gypsy.
They spent two days in each city: in the Czech Republic, Cesky Krumlov, Ostrava, Tanvald and Prague, and in Poland, Krakow, Wroclaw and the Ojcow National Park.
Their missions during this blogtrip: Instagram posts and instastories, Facebook and Twitter posts, an SEO-optimized article and video creation by Travel Me Happy and WorldElse.
The campaign was a success for the brand, which benefited from considerable visibility thanks to the influencers.
Of course, we could have continued this list with many more campaigns… Influencers play a vital role in the tourism sector, and campaigns stand out with ever more original and innovative concepts to promote a brand, develop brand awareness, build loyalty, transmit emotions and transform the communication operation into a lasting acquisition.
