The period of post-COVID revenge journey is fading. Vacationers are actually approaching holidays and leisure with extra intention as they navigate a cost-conscious setting. They’re nonetheless desirous to discover, however they need significant experiences that really feel well worth the spend, and so they’re discovering them on social.
In keeping with the Q3 2025 Sprout Social Pulse Survey, 69% of customers anticipate utilizing social to plan journey within the subsequent yr. These charges are even larger amongst Gen Z (87%), Millennials (81%) and fogeys (83%).
Social media drives how individuals plan and share their journey experiences. For journey and tourism entrepreneurs, social media advertising presents a possibility to satisfy individuals in key moments and affect what occurs subsequent.
On this information, you’ll learn to use social media to encourage vacationers, construct belief and improve bookings.
Why social media is the brand new concierge
Vacationers flip to social media for steerage like they’d a concierge. And when social performs the function of concierge, it helps each vacationers and types. It’s a robust method to spark inspiration, construct belief via genuine interactions, strengthen loyalty over time and uncover insights that drive ongoing enchancment.
In our Q3 2025 Pulse Survey, 55% of customers stated buyer suggestions on overview platforms influences whether or not they e book with a journey firm, adopted intently by the standard of social buyer care (42%) and the convenience of reserving straight from social (32%).
This exhibits a few of the some ways social helps individuals navigate via the shopper journey. Vacationers go to completely different networks for various kinds of content material, as a result of every one helps them in a particular method:
- Instagram and TikTok spark inspiration via visuals and storytelling
- Fb helps vacationers collect suggestions and evaluations from their networks
- YouTube presents long-form insights and real-world views
- Pinterest helps itinerary planning and group
Each social touchpoint shapes notion lengthy earlier than reserving, together with different elements that affect the place and the way individuals select to journey.
Seasonality, evaluations and vacation spot branding can all affect fame and visibility for journey and tourism manufacturers. That’s what makes social media advertising so invaluable: it lets you reply in actual time and keep prime of thoughts year-round.
5 methods to raise your journey social media advertising
Social media guides the place vacationers select to go and which manufacturers they belief alongside the best way. To profit from that chance, you want a transparent framework for find out how to present up, hear and have interaction strategically.
Embrace these 5 components in your social media advertising tourism technique to strengthen engagement, belief and long-term model loyalty.
Create genuine, discoverable content material that turns lookers into bookers
Posting any previous content material isn’t going to chop it. It has to offer audiences a extra immersive glimpse into what your model presents.
Knowledge from Sprout’s 2025 Journey & Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report reveals that hospitality and tourism manufacturers put up an above-average share of video content material throughout channels. On Instagram alone, single-image posts decreased by 9 factors from 2023 to 2024, exhibiting that tourism manufacturers are favoring different codecs, comparable to multi-image carousels and movies, to interact audiences.
Video is right for journey social media advertising as a result of vacationers need content material that helps them image themselves within the vacation spot, and video is essentially the most genuine method to offer a style of the sounds, views and feeling of being someplace.
To create an genuine and emotional connection together with your viewers, concentrate on short-form movies, reels and carousels that present moderately than inform. Journey Past Rail demonstrates this strategy in a Fb video titled “What I’ve Seen From My Window.”
Optimizing for discoverability on social additionally issues. In keeping with a dialogue in The Arboretum, Sprout’s neighborhood discussion board for social and advertising professionals, customers nonetheless depend on hashtags as an natural discovery software, particularly after they’re planning or researching experiences.
Utilizing location hashtags and geotags is a straightforward method to improve visibility in searches and on Discover pages. Vacationers typically browse journey or vacation spot hashtags like #CaliforniaRoadTrip, #VisitCornwall, #WildAtlanticWay or #SydneyEats, so utilizing the suitable hashtags will assist your content material floor in these searches.
In our Q3 2025 Pulse Survey, social media content material ranked fourth (with 29% of the vote) among the many elements that affect if customers e book journey with an organization. It exhibits how a tailor-made social media content material technique may also help journey and tourism manufacturers shorten the gap between discovery and reserving.
Harness social proof with influencer advertising and UGC
Sharing user-generated content material (UGC) and incorporating influencer advertising into your technique helps humanize your model and switch previous prospects into advocates. It is because it’s a type of social proof, which is borrowed credibility that exhibits a model is price selecting and may be trusted.
Reap the benefits of UGC by discovering and reposting vacationers’ photographs, movies or optimistic evaluations (with permission and attribution, in fact). Tourism Australia does this on X, exhibiting how one can pair UGC with model hashtags to spice up discoverability, share genuine tales and maintain your neighborhood engaged.
UGC earns belief via actual traveler experiences, whereas influencer advertising does it via creator-driven storytelling that places your model in context.
Collaborations work finest when there’s alignment between an influencer’s pursuits and your viewers’s passions past shared demographics. That’s why many journey entrepreneurs are shifting towards micro-influencers and native creators who carry area of interest experience and deeper engagement.
Influencer advertising additionally helps manufacturers sync up with social algorithms. Networks more and more prioritize creator-led content material, which means influencer partnerships can increase visibility and credibility.
Contemplate this TikTok the place a journey creator shared a vlog of her day whereas on a sponsored journey to Dominica. Despite the fact that it’s a paid promotion, it nonetheless feels genuine as a result of it’s not all in regards to the model, and its her voice. This instance exhibits why it’s vital to create a stable influencer advertising transient, then step again and belief your collaborator to inform your story in their very own artistic method.
Sprout Social’s Influencer Advertising and marketing platform lets you discover creators that’ll resonate together with your viewers via AI-powered, topic-led search, and consider a creator’s model match, content material efficiency and previous partnership. It’s also possible to flag creators’ previous content material utilizing model security reporting to scale back dangers and uphold model values and measure and report on ROI throughout natural and boosted influencer content material.
Use it to handle outreach, contracting, content material approvals and all marketing campaign components in a customizable workflow answer.
Our Social Media Listening software provides one other layer of perception to supply related UGC content material. By monitoring conversations and model mentions, it’s simple to search out natural UGC to reshare and perceive what vacationers are saying about your model and rivals in actual time.
By connecting with voices vacationers already belief, manufacturers can earn credibility that conventional social content material merely can’t match.
Be a part of the conversations on social media
Journey experiences can spark feelings starting from pleasure to anxiousness, and vacationers flip to manufacturers for reassurance at each stage of the journey. Whether or not they’re asking a resort about facilities, tagging an airline mid-trip or leaving a post-stay overview, social is the place it occurs. It’s additionally the place many manufacturers fall quick.
In keeping with Sprout’s 2025 Journey & Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report, journey and hospitality manufacturers reply to solely 6% of incoming messages and feedback per day. That silence comes at a value. The 2025 Sprout Social Index™ reported that 73% of social customers would select a competitor if a model didn’t reply on social. Vacationers are speaking, and plenty of manufacturers aren’t listening or partaking, making it that a lot simpler for those that do to face out.
Virgin Atlantic takes benefit of this chance hole by staying on prime of its replies, each detrimental and optimistic. When a father or mother posted a photograph of their little one dressed as a Virgin Atlantic airplane for Halloween, the airline responded the identical day with humor and heat, turning a one-off put up right into a humorous second.
This interplay exhibits how you should utilize social media neighborhood administration to construct model love one small interplay at a time.
Assign somebody in your workforce to supervise social media neighborhood administration, or usher in a number of devoted specialists in case your message quantity warrants it. Reply to feedback, direct messages and evaluations, then monitor traveler sentiment throughout platforms to see the distinction the hassle makes.
Past one-to-one responses, take into account constructing a distinct segment neighborhood round shared journey pursuits or locations. On social, this might imply making a recurring content material sequence, branded hashtag or a personal Fb group with a particular theme. Constructing digital communities round frequent pursuits or passions lets you form the dialog, whereas additionally creating stronger connections and better engagement.
By becoming a member of the dialog, and discovering methods to guide it, you possibly can earn belief, construct loyalty and join with previous and future visitors in significant methods.
Embrace paid social in your promoting finances
Natural content material builds consciousness and belief, and paid promotion ensures your model seems when somebody is planning, looking or able to e book. Paid social provides you the power to personalize your messaging extra, goal area of interest audiences and scale high-performing content material quicker.
When you don’t already, discover how one can embody paid social promoting in your advertising finances. This might appear like working conventional advertisements to drive consciousness, boosting UGC content material that’s already performing properly or paying creators to provide sponsored content material.
For instance, Marriott Bonvoy makes use of paid search and social concentrating on to remain current in destination-specific searches, so it exhibits up when customers seek for associated posts on Pinterest.
Total, with paid social, you need to monitor what performs finest and spend accordingly. Sprout’s Paid vs. Natural Reporting widget within the Premium Analytics Report Builder exhibits you which of them content material drives essentially the most engagement and conversions throughout Fb, Instagram and LinkedIn, serving to you allocate finances to the campaigns delivering one of the best returns.
Together with paid social in your social media advertising technique units you as much as improve bookings by exhibiting up precisely when and the place vacationers are able to act.
Measure affect with key social media metrics
Monitoring efficiency helps journey manufacturers perceive what resonates, the place to speculate and present how social contributes to the underside line.
To grasp the total image, take a look at how your campaigns and content material carry out throughout quantitative and qualitative metrics. Each are indicators of how vacationers really feel about your model and the way properly your workforce is supporting them.
Key quantitative metrics: Engagement fee, attain, impressions, referral site visitors, lead era, customer support response occasions and clicks.
Key qualitative suggestions: Sentiment evaluation, model mentions and buyer evaluations.
Apart from monitoring affect via particular metrics, you may as well arrange attribution modeling, which connects social exercise to bookings, income and different enterprise objectives. When you’re ready the place you’re making an attempt to increase your social media advertising finances, this can be obligatory, as a result of in accordance with 65% of promoting leaders, demonstrating how social media campaigns are tied to enterprise objectives is essential for securing social funding.
By measuring affect from a number of angles, you possibly can flip insights into smarter investments.
Traits shaping social media advertising for tourism
The tendencies under spotlight how manufacturers are adapting their methods to offer vacationers extra of what they need, which is authenticity, personalization and a way of connection.
Personalised content material
Personalised content material tailors suggestions, tone and inventive to mirror what particular person vacationers care about most. When executed properly, your social networks will really feel like an extension of your in-person service.
With 61% of vacationers saying they worth tailor-made suggestions, and the 2025 Sprout Social Index™ reporting that buyers need manufacturers to make customized customer support their prime precedence this yr, it’s clear that personalization is extremely desired.
Expedia’s journey matching software on Instagram exhibits how you should utilize AI to ship personalization. Customers can ship a public Reel to Expedia’s Instagram, and in return, they’ll get a personalised journey plan, generated by AI, for that vacation spot.
Each journey represents time, cash and anticipation, and vacationers need manufacturers to acknowledge that. So whenever you use social to anticipate wants and customise experiences, you’re exhibiting you care about their expertise, which matches a good distance.
Tapping into native tradition
Visiting a brand new vacation spot and going sightseeing isn’t the one factor persons are searching for as of late. Travellers need to meet locals, strive new meals and be taught what makes a spot tick and so they need manufacturers to behave as guides, giving them the insider recommendation on a vacation spot. So, apply could be to incorporate this facet in your technique.
For instance, Intrepid Journey, an Australia-based journey firm that focuses on small-group adventures, typically options what makes their locations particular in an interesting method. In a Fb put up about Kyoto’s soy milk donuts, the model spotlights a small meals stall via the attitude of an area information, exhibiting how one can highlight native tradition with out making it really feel business.
With 73% of vacationers saying it’s vital to help native small companies whereas visiting a brand new vacation spot, storytelling turns into a method to spotlight these companies and present your model shares these values.
Leaning into nostalgia
Searching for an escape to easier occasions, persons are revisiting the locations and experiences the place they created their favourite recollections. In reality, 58% of vacationers with children say they plan to revisit locations from their childhood in 2025, proving that nostalgia influences the place and the way individuals journey.
Walt Disney World is aware of how compelling comfortable recollections may be. In a cross-network put up celebrating its 54th anniversary, the model invited followers to share their favourite recollections, and the feedback are stuffed with heartwarming tales, demonstrating how asking individuals to take a stroll down reminiscence lane can deepen the bond between your model and previous visitors or prospects.
For journey manufacturers, nostalgia may be a possibility to indicate continuity and care. Sharing milestone moments, revisiting iconic experiences or highlighting visitor tales that span many years helps individuals really feel a part of one thing lasting and retains them coming again to create new recollections.
Shock and delight
Vacationers keep in mind each the small and large moments that make them really feel valued. Extra journey and tourism manufacturers are recognizing that and discovering artistic methods to shock and delight visitors throughout and even after their stays. Why has this develop into a development? As our 2025 Journey and Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report places it, “posting alone can’t earn you model loyalty—solely real engagement can.”
Let’s take a look at what Hilton did on TikTok. The model discovered a possibility to shock and delight, and so they jumped on it. Creator @judys_tulips put up a viral put up about taking her grandma to a Conan Grey live performance, and Hilton stunned them with a complimentary keep.
The model adopted up with its personal video recapping the story and celebrating “Gran,” which their followers stated they liked within the feedback. Gestures like these create lasting goodwill for the visitors concerned and for everybody who follows alongside.
Have in mind, benefiting from this development doesn’t at all times require a grand gesture. It may be so simple as responding to a visitor’s story, highlighting a considerate workers second or sending a personalised thank-you message after a keep.
With instruments like Sprout’s Good Inbox, manufacturers can spot and reply to significant moments as they occur. By centralizing all messages and mentions, social groups can simply discover and act on posts from excited visitors, traveler shout-outs or type evaluations the second they seem.
Embrace the social-first journey panorama
Social media is now on the middle of how individuals dream, plan and share their journey experiences. Exhibiting up in a strategic and significant method retains you seen in each stage of journey planning course of, whereas constructing belief and gathering insights you should utilize to enhance buyer expertise.
Deal with social as an extension of your in-person expertise. As a digital concierge, it helps vacationers make assured selections and offers manufacturers a direct line to know and serve their visitors higher. The extra persistently you hear and have interaction, the seemingly vacationers are to decide on your model.
Obtain Sprout’s 2025 Journey & Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report back to see how your model’s efficiency compares to business benchmarks and get insights to information your subsequent transfer.
