Influencer Marketing for the Luxury Travel Segment

As influencer marketing has grown more popular across a range of industries, even traditional holdouts like the luxury segment are getting more active testing creator-driven campaigns. One segment where this is increasingly the case is for marketing luxury products like travel, where the growing demand for social media content, combined with the more accessible/aspirational nature of creator content is leading to a surge in influencer-driven luxury marketing campaigns. Who are some of the top creators in the luxury travel segment? What are they posting about? And who are they reaching with their audience? We used Captiv8’s insights tool to take a closer look.

Top Luxury Travel Creators

We examined the #luxurytravel hashtag on Instagram, a topic which has more than 1.87 million posts, to find some of the creators with the top reach and audience. Among the top creators generating luxury travel content:

• Marina Comes – 160,000 followers
• Beau Dunn – 198,000
• Luxury World Traveler – 2.6 million
• Jennifer Tuffen – 2.7 million
• Beautiful Destinations – 9.3 million
• Murad Osmann – 4.6 million

Marina, Beau, Murad and Jennifer all have individual accounts, while Luxury World Traveler and Beautiful Destinations are group accounts run by multiple individuals. Marina, Beau and Jennifer tend to post glamorous snaps of themselves jet-setting between luxurious travel hotspots like Italy, South Africa, Dubai and the South Pacific. Meanwhile, Beautiful Destinations focuses on exactly what the name would imply: gorgeous landscapes from around the world. Murad has gotten famous for an iconic image of him holding his partner’s hand as they explore some of the world’s most famous tourism hotspots. Last but not least, Luxury World Travel highlights some of the world’s most opulent resorts, hotels and cruise ships.

Luxury Travel Audience

Using Captiv8’s insights tool, we also took a closer look at the demographics of social media users who tend to engage with luxury travel content. Much as you might expect, it’s an upscale bunch, with plenty of opportunity for marketing campaigns:

• Skews toward women – 59% of the luxury travel audience is female.
• Majority of audience is older – while some social user groups skew young, the luxury travel user base is slightly older. 56% fall into the 25-44 year old age bracket.
• Skews toward high income – much as you’d expect a decent slice of the audience tracking luxury travel content comes from the high earning age bracket. Around 10% earn between $60,000 to 100,000 a year, above average for the audiences that follow other popular social media topics.

Integrating Creator Content into Luxury Travel Campaigns

Wondering how your brand might integrate luxury travel content from a creator into an upcoming campaign? Here’s a few best practices:

• Luxury is all about inspiration – Whereas other product categories might require marketers to select creator content that is “authentic,” luxury travel is one category where you’re free to go a little wild. In fact, the content that often performs best is all about inspiring your audience to fuel some wanderlust of their own. Don’t be afraid to go more upscale here: insane views, luxurious resorts, once-in-a-lifetime trips.
• Image quality and composition matter – Related to the point above, luxury travel content works because it has a high degree of fantasy to it. As a result, high-quality imagery is an absolute must. Avoid watermarking images whenever possible, and ensure that your creators set up the perfect composition.
• Authenticity still matters – Unlike the luxury magazine spreads of days past, today’s younger affluent consumers are OK with a little dose of reality. With that in mind, it’s important to strike the right balance. Don’t be afraid to give your audience a look “behind-the-scenes” and make sure to keep luxury travel considerations like animal welfare, charitable campaigns and eco-friendly travel practices top of mind.

There’s a world of luxurious attractions just waiting for marketers and wanderlusting consumers to explore. Ready to take your own brand’s luxury travel campaign to the elite level? Contact the Captiv8 team today to learn more.