Pickup in travel gives lift to influencer marketing

The trend: Travel marketing has risen solidly in 2022 after taking a nosedive during the pandemic, a factor that is helping to lift influencer marketing.

• Increases in travel ad spending are close to levels last seen in the 2020 first quarter, with the major categories–airlines, lodging providers, rental car companies, and tourism boards–all coming back, per a MediaRadar report.
• As travel marketing resumes, it’s likely that a fair share of those funds will go to creator partnerships, increasing total influencer marketing spending.

A resilient sector: Though many recession-wary marketers are curbing their marketing spending, our forecast suggests those cuts don’t necessarily extend to influencer partnerships. US influencer marketing spending will come to roughly $5 billion in 2022, up $850 million from our previous forecast and over $1 billion more than was spent in 2021.

• Businesses that already use influencer marketing are increasing their spending and new marketers are leaning in. This year, 74.5% of US marketers from companies with over 100 employees will work with influencers.

Travel influencers were the No. 4 most popular type of creator worldwide, with 11% of adults saying they followed them in a 2021 YouGov study. That was behind only food (16%), celebrity (12%), and health (12%) creators and on par with fashion, beauty, music, and lifestyle creators.

Go further: Read more about the factors that are driving influencer marketing spending in our report, Influencer Marketing 2022.