Influencers and Travel Marketing: From Viral Destinations to New Ways of Traveling
The Rise of Travel Marketing on Social Media
A spectacular landscape, a hidden gem, a picturesque village, or a unique experience… Sometimes all it takes is a few seconds of video on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube to inspire thousands of travelers to explore a destination.
Social media has profoundly transformed the way we choose, plan, and experience our trips. Content creators no longer simply share their discoveries—they inspire, guide, and influence the travel decisions of their communities.
But beyond the visibility it generates, influencer marketing is now a true strategic asset for players in the tourism industry. It makes it possible to refresh a destination’s image, highlight experiences that are still relatively unknown, and reach new communities. However, this requires not limiting oneself to the most popular spots: the challenge also lies in diversifying narratives, highlighting other facets of a region, and inspiring people to travel in new ways.
At Oxygen, a tourism communications agency, our Influence & Talent division leverages its industry expertise to help destinations design campaigns that go beyond mere visibility.
Our approach: selecting relevant travel and tourism influencers, creating authentic experiences, and showcasing the full richness of a destination—including its lesser-known aspects. The goal? To offer travelers a fresh perspective, diversify the experiences highlighted, and build lasting appeal.
When Travel Influencers Contribute to Overtourism
The Downside of Going Viral: Places That Are Victims of Their Own Success
While travel influencers on social media can help people discover a destination, their influence can also contribute to concentrating visitors in a few places that have become must-see spots.
Certain landscapes, neighborhoods, or natural sites thus experience a sudden surge in popularity following the spread of viral content. Travelers want to recreate the same experiences, find the same viewpoints, and sometimes even take exactly the same photos.
This phenomenon can exacerbate already high visitor numbers and lead to tangible consequences: infrastructure overload, pressure on natural areas, disruption for residents, or damage to certain sites.
In an article published in May 2025, Le Monde examined how TikTok and Instagram have transformed our vacations, highlighting the tensions stemming from the popularity of destinations such as Étretat, Bali, and Iceland.
The real challenge lies in the concentration of tourist traffic: when the same places go viral on social media, shared by numerous travel influencers, they attract large numbers of visitors, often during the same time periods.
Toward a More Responsible Approach to Tourism Influence?
In light of these challenges, tourism stakeholders and content creators alike have a role to play.
Promoting a destination does not necessarily mean encouraging massive visitor numbers. On the contrary, an influencer marketing strategy can help spread tourist flows more evenly, highlight less-crowded periods, or introduce alternatives to the most popular sites.
This requires rethinking the messages and experiences offered to travel influencers: highlighting sustainable transportation, local expertise, socially responsible accommodations, and activities that respect the local environment.
Influencers in the tourism sector themselves can adopt a more responsible approach by raising awareness among their communities about best practices or by avoiding overexposure of certain particularly fragile sites.
The goal is no longer simply to inspire a desire to travel, but also to encourage a more thoughtful way of discovering destinations.
Influencer Marketing: An Opportunity for Less-Known Destinations
Bringing New Destinations to the Forefront of Travelers’ Minds
What if the true potential of tourism influencer marketing also lay in its ability to help people discover places they haven’t yet explored?
Small towns, rural areas, local destinations, and regions that receive less media attention often possess a wealth of culture, cuisine, and natural beauty that deserves to be highlighted more.
For these destinations, influencer marketing makes it possible to reach targeted communities that are sometimes difficult to reach through traditional marketing campaigns.
It can also help shift perceptions. A destination historically associated with a particular activity can reveal other facets of its identity: heritage, cuisine, culture, lifestyle, or events.
Engaging travel influencers thus becomes a powerful tool for promoting a region, capable of creating a richer image and revitalizing a destination’s appeal.
Travel Influencers: Focus on the Right Profiles Rather Than the Largest Audiences
For a tourism influencer campaign to succeed, the number of followers alone is not a measure of success.
A content creator specializing in local getaways, hiking, gastronomy, or cultural experiences may prove particularly relevant for a destination seeking to reach a specific community.
The key lies in the alignment between the chosen influencer, their audience, their editorial style, and the destination’s identity.
A lifestyle influencer, for example, can help showcase a destination’s urban and cultural atmosphere, while an influencer specializing in sustainable tourism can highlight its natural heritage and environmental commitments.
This approach also requires leaving plenty of room for creativity. Rather than imposing a promotional message, the goal is to allow the travel influencer to have an experience and share it in their own unique way.
A successful collaboration depends as much on the relevance of the influencer’s profile as on the quality of the story told.
Case Study: How Is Oxygen Promoting Andorra Through Influencer Marketing?
An Influencer Strategy to Showcase Andorra’s Many Facets
Although often associated with winter sports and tax-free shopping, Andorra has many other attractions to offer: gastronomy, culture, nature, wellness, entertainment, and sporting experiences.
To shift this perception and boost its appeal among a younger, urban, and digitally connected audience, Andorra Turisme has enlisted Oxygen’s Influence division to roll out an annual influencer marketing strategy.
The goal? To move beyond the Principality’s traditional image and show that Andorra is a destination worth exploring year-round, across all seasons and experiences.
Content Creators to Bring the Destination to Life in a New Way
To bring this strategy to life, Oxygen is focusing on collaborations with content creators whose perspectives complement one another—creators capable of showcasing Andorra through their own eyes and reaching diverse communities.
The campaign centers on several key tourism and event highlights: the preview of the Cirque du Soleil show, the Andorra Shopping Festival, and Andorra Taste, an event dedicated to high-mountain gastronomy.
Through immersive trips and a variety of experiences, influencers share their discoveries, favorite spots, and personal highlights with their communities.
This approach helps showcase a wide range of perspectives on the destination, highlight the diversity of its tourism offerings, and build consistent visibility on social media—beyond just peak travel seasons.
An influencer campaign with significant results
This strategy illustrates the potential of influencer marketing to boost a destination’s visibility and refresh its image among new audiences.
Key campaign figures:
- 6 influencers engaged
- 11 Reels and posts and 82 Stories shared
- 1.63 million reach recorded
- 11,000 engagements generated
- €64,500 in estimated Earned Media Value (EMV)
Beyond digital performance, this campaign demonstrates the value of a long-term influencer strategy: showcasing a destination from different perspectives, creating new reasons to visit, and inspiring travelers to create their own experiences.
Andorra Through the Eyes of Creators
From shopping to fine dining, mountain landscapes, outdoor activities, and cultural events—here’s a visual look back at some of the experiences shared by the content creators working with Andorra Turisme.
Oxygen, votre partenaire pour vos stratégies de marketing d’influence
At Oxygen, our Influencer Marketing division supports tourism stakeholders in designing and implementing customized influencer campaigns. From selecting content creators to organizing immersive trips, as well as creating content and measuring performance, we leverage our expertise to promote destinations, highlight their strengths, and reach new audiences.
Would you like to boost your destination’s appeal through influencer marketing? Contact our experts so we can work together to develop a strategy tailored to your goals.
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