2023 Travel Influencer Marketing Index: Tagger

Tagger by Sprout Social, the global technology leader in making influencer marketing more intelligent, today releases its 2023 Travel Influencer Marketing Index. The report identifies important trends for travel brands as they continue to refine and optimize marketing campaigns, focusing on the content, influencers and brands performing best.

Leveraging Tagger’s social intelligence engine, Signals, the report looks at trends and insights from the first three quarters of 2023. As the travel sector has been a long-time adopter of influencer marketing to gain traction with key audiences, the report reveals what content types and platforms drive the best results today and the rise of nano-influencers.

“Influencers present the perfect opportunity for travel brands to share engaging content with followers, inspiring audiences to travel to unique destinations, download helpful apps, and purchase travel gear,” said Dave Dickman, Head of Global Sales and Services, Influencer Marketing. “This latest Index proves that influencer marketing is critical for success, but content very clearly matters more than ever. Like other industries, video is necessary to drive performance and engagement across platforms.”

“At Madden, data drives our influencer strategy, allowing us to increase engagement and shift with the changing social trends,” said Nicole McElroy, Media Strategist at Madden Media. “The Tagger Travel Index affords us the opportunity to build better relationships with content creators and brands that align with client strategy and destination experiences.”

The Travel Influencer Marketing Index shows 1.26 million travel-related posts from almost 55,000 influencers. Here are some key takeaways from the data:

Smaller-Sized Creators Offer Big Benefits: Nano-influencers (< 5K followers) see the most engagement from their audience, with an engagement rate of 4.32%, followed by micro-influencers (5K – 25K followers) at 2.52%.

Platform Pivot: While Instagram continues to see the largest number of posts at over 1 million, we expect TikTok will continue to gain traction for travel brands with its high engagement rate of 3.43%.

Everyone Loves Travel: When looking at who’s engaging with posts, we see that both women and men are interested in travel-related content. And while the United States has the largest engaged audience compared to other countries, we see a more diverse list of cities globally interested in all things travel.

“Amplifying our destinations’ core messages through the lens of trusted content creators offers audiences real-life experiences and unique stories while inspiring travel,” said Josh Johnson, Creative Strategist at Madden Media. “In turn, our destinations are able to leverage this captivating content to drive larger brand initiatives through holistic marketing campaigns that deliver resonating scroll-stopping results for our clients.”