Travel has quietly climbed into the top five most in-demand creator niches, and if you run a hotel, a stay or any kind of experience, that shift is worth a few minutes of your attention. Travel UGC – real people filming the places they go and the things they do – has gone from a nice-to-have to one of the categories brands are actively hunting for. Here is what changed, and how to make the trend work for you rather than watch it pass by.
Travel muscled into the top five.
In its 2026 Influencer Marketing Report, the creator marketplace Collabstr looked at 2.3 million searches from brands and ranked the niches they wanted most. The top five: lifestyle, beauty, fashion, health and fitness, and travel. Travel is the newcomer, replacing food and drink in the top five for the first time.
That is not a small reshuffle. It means the brands paying for creator content have decided travel and experiences are where they want to spend. Adventure and outdoors backs it up: the same report has it as one of the fastest-growing niches, up 67% year on year, and one of the five priciest at an average of $274 a piece. When a category is both in demand and commanding higher rates, that is a market telling you it works.
Why experiences pull the budget now.
Collabstr puts travel’s rise down to how much spending has tilted towards experiences over things. When a creator shares a destination, a hotel or a travel must-have, it does more than entertain – it moves people to book. And here is the part brands care about: those bookings are trackable. A creator posts a reel of your rooftop breakfast, and you can watch the reservations follow. That direct line from a piece of content to a real outcome is exactly why travel creators have become so valuable.
People also just want to travel more. In SiteMinder’s Changing Traveller Report 2026 – a survey of 12,000 travellers across 14 countries – nearly half say they have a stronger desire to travel over the next year, with only 12% feeling less keen. Event-driven trips are a big driver: 63% say they are more likely to travel for a special event next year, rising to 81% among Gen Z. Concerts, festivals, matchdays, a big food weekend – all of it becomes a reason to book, and all of it is content waiting to be filmed.
Where people actually start looking.
The way travellers find you has changed too, and it matters for where your content needs to live. SiteMinder found that online travel agencies have overtaken search engines as the first place people start researching a stay – 26% now begin on an OTA, up from 18%, while search engine starts fell from 36% to 21%. Most striking for anyone in this game: word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family doubled from 7% to 14%.
That word-of-mouth resurgence is the whole case for UGC in one number. A creator sharing a genuine stay is the closest thing to a friend’s recommendation you can put in front of a stranger. People no longer move in a straight line from search to booking – they bounce between an OTA, a social feed, a mate’s story and a review before they commit. Your content has to be waiting in more of those places, and it has to feel like a person, not a brochure.
The 2026 playbook for hotels and experiences.
So what do you actually do with all this? A few things that hold up whether you are a boutique hotel, a tour operator or a café worth travelling for.
Film the experience, not the amenity list. Nobody books because a room has a kettle. They book because a video made them feel the morning light, the walk down to the water, the first coffee on the balcony. Show the moment a guest would want to relive, and let the details sell themselves.
Tie content to events. With 63% of travellers planning trips around something happening, give them the reason. A gig in town, a seasonal menu, a local festival – a creator filming the run-up gives people a date to book against instead of a vague someday.
Make it native to the feed. The content that travels is vertical, sound-on and unpolished in the right way. This is the same craft I put into hotel and Airbnb content and café content that gets shared – real, warm, built for the platform it lands on.
Then use it everywhere. One good travel video is not a one-post asset. It belongs on your OTA listing, your booking page, your organic social and your paid ads – all the touchpoints a traveller now bounces through before they commit.
Travel UGC is where the budget works hardest.
Here is the part that makes this easy to justify. UGC is not the expensive end of creator marketing – it is the efficient end. Collabstr’s report shows UGC campaigns more than doubled over the year, from 15% to 35% of all collaborations, while the average cost of a UGC campaign actually dropped 5.7% to around $197. More than 40% of the brands buying it are small businesses spending under $5,000, and nearly 80% of all creator collaborations come in under $300.
Read that back. The fastest-growing content format, in one of the most in-demand niches, is also one of the most affordable. You do not need a film crew or a five-figure budget to show up where travellers are looking. You need genuine content that feels like a recommendation and works across every place someone might find you.
If you run a hotel, a stay or an experience and you want travel content that feels like a friend’s tip rather than an ad, that is exactly what I do – filmed, edited and delivered ready to post. Take a look at my packages or email me at [email protected] and let’s plan your next shoot.
