Top 10 Travel Brands Mentioned by Influencers

Introduction

Travel might be the most influencer-driven category there is. Nobody books a trip off a billboard anymore, yet plenty book one after watching a creator wake up in a glass cabin or a Paris suite. So which brands do creators actually talk about? Not the ones with the biggest ad budgets. The ones with the most photogenic, shareable experiences. And the data makes the winner obvious.

Here is the ranking, the mention data behind it, plus what travel's most-mentioned brands reveal about how the category really works.

How the data works

This is not a vibes ranking. The core figures come from a large-scale study of what creators actually posted.

The leaderboard

The brands creators mention most, with measured mention counts where available.

Sources: Kolsquare study (mention counts and share of voice, Jan 2022 to Feb 2023), Aspire, Ainfluencer, AWISEE. "Frequent" and "High SOV" denote brands ranked on visibility rather than an exact count.

Why Airbnb dominates

Airbnb's 16,282 mentions nearly double the top hotel chain's. The reason is structural, not luck. Airbnb sells exactly what creators need: content.

Every Airbnb is different, from cabins to city lofts, Each one gives creators a fresh, photogenic backdrop rather than the same hotel room shot a thousand times. Its "live like a local" positioning fits the immersive, slow-travel and group-trip content that performs best with travel audiences. Where a hotel chain offers consistency, Airbnb offers novelty. Novelty is what gets posted.

Luxury's share of voice

Volume is one story. Share of voice, the percentage of conversation a brand owns, tells another. Here luxury punches far above its size.

On share of voice, the top tier was dominated by Airbnb alongside luxury Paris hotels Le Meurice and Plaza Athénée, with Four Seasons and Relais & Châteaux leading the hotel mention counts. A boutique luxury property hosts a tiny fraction of Airbnb's guests, yet generates outsized conversation because aspirational, once-in-a-lifetime stays are inherently more postable. Scarcity and prestige convert into share of voice. On Instagram specifically, the travel sector's content skews heavily to feed posts at around 64%, with Reels near 32% and Stories a small slice.

From posts to ambassadors

The bigger trend underneath the rankings is how travel brands now work with creators.

• One-off to ongoing. Travel influencer marketing is shifting from single sponsored posts toward long-term brand ambassadorships.
• Recurring faces win. Audiences increasingly prefer a familiar creator tied to a specific airline, hotel group or platform, because repetition builds trust.
• Results back it. Around 28% of travellers have booked a hotel based on an influencer recommendation, real conversion, not just awareness.
• A big-money category. With global travel revenue projected near $956 billion in 2025, the stakes for getting creator partnerships right are large.

Why this matters for brands

The lesson from the leaderboard is not "be Airbnb." It is to understand why creators mention who they mention.

Brands that win in travel give creators something genuinely worth posting, a unique stay, an aspirational experience, a story their audience will want. If your product is forgettable, no amount of spend will buy authentic mentions. And because the category is moving to ambassadorships, the brands that build lasting relationships with the right travel creators, rather than chasing one-off posts, are the ones that will keep showing up in feeds and in booking decisions.

How to use this with Flinque

Whether you run a hotel group, an airline or a booking platform, the takeaway is the same: your results depend on partnering with travel creators whose audiences actually travel and actually book. Mentions follow from the right match, not from spend.

With Flinque you can search 10M+ verified creators by niche to build a travel shortlist, run a fake follower check to confirm audiences are genuine, then benchmark engagement so you back creators who drive bookings, not just likes. For brands you can approach directly, see our guide to travel companies that work with influencers.