What are influencer relations for the hotel industry all about? And why is that topic essential for us as a hotel PR agency? 

Influencer marketing or influencer relations should be part of every successful marketing mix. Countless companies from a wide range of industries use it successfully. Especially in the areas of food PR and wine PR, influencers are important multipliers. When forming suitable collaborations, the hotel industry can also profit greatly from influencer marketing. 

Our food, hotel and lifestyle agency Click Connection provides you with digital know-how and years of industry expertise in the hotel PR sector. For more information about influencer relations in general, visit Click Connection. You can also read our detailed blog post over at our F&B PR agency Gourmet Connection. 

Influencers and hotel PR? A perfect match! 

Being an influencer is not a protected term. Anyone who has an impact on their followers can be called an influencer. As a lifestyle and tourism PR agency, we often work with classic social media influencers in the food, travel or interior sectors. That’s something hoteliers can benefit from, as long as the target groups match. Influencers talk to their community about their experiences in an authentic way, e.g. on Instagram or Facebook, and present hotels in the right light. Whether it’s as a new destination for a weekend getaway or a restaurant tip in the area. Readers trust the personal recommendations of the influencers they follow on social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter. This is a good way to present your hotel’s special features to the right target group, as the social media content directly appeals to them. 

Which influencers are a good fit for me?  

At the beginning of creating a marketing concept or before starting with specific campaign planning, it may seem as if there’s an almost endless selection of matching influencers. At our hotel PR agency we ask the following questions to help simplify the search for suitable partners:  

• What kind of channels does the client’s target group use? The influencer should definitely have a strong presence there. 
• Does the influencer’s or blogger’s target group fit my client’s?  
• How genuine is the influencer? Do they simply accept any kind of cooperation or are products presented authentically?  
• Is the setting appropriate? Do the style and wording of their other posts match my brand and my communication style?  
• How large is the influencer’s reach? Am I willing to pay for the corresponding KPIs?  

These questions can be used to narrow down the selection of suitable influencers. As a tourism and lifestyle PR agency with many years of experience in influencer marketing for hotels and restaurants, we make sure that collaborations are presented authentically. And that the influencers really stand behind the products. Even though we don’t always just look at the numbers, as a PR agency with digital expertise it’s of course important to us that your hotel is presented to the largest possible community. On the other side we want the influencers or bloggers. Our goal is to receive a fair fee for the collaboration. By working together as equals, the posts have a consistently high quality.  

A successful influencer cooperation’s value  

What makes a successful influencer cooperation so valuable and why should you as a hotelier definitely consider this option? Quite simple: the influencer comes across as reliable and credible to their community. For example, influencers accompany their hotel visits live on their Instagram stories and share their direct and personal experiences. Since bloggers and influencers report from the perspective of a guest, potential visitors feel as if they were directly involved. Curious followers can read all about their trips in an in-depth blog post after successfully sparking their interest with Instagram stories. 

A best practice case from our hotel PR agency 

As a communications agency, it’s important for us to find the right fit between our clients and influencers, especially concerning target groups. On the other hand, it’s equally important to thematically focus during the visit. This is what makes the cooperation personally valuable. The influencer can tell their followers about a visit that was just the right fit for them.   

As a hotel PR agency, we have already been able to achieve numerous success stories through targeted influencer invitations, for example with our client Hotel Rebstock. For example, we arranged a cooperation around the topic of desserts between the head chef at KUNO 1408 and blogger Madame Dessert. The influencer was able to take an exclusive look behind the gourmet restaurant’s scenes and ask the professional all kinds of questions about ingredients or preparation methods. Together, the two of them prepared a recipe and Madame Dessert was able to offer her readers long-term added value. The sweet gingerbread mousse Christmas tree balls with apple filling and a mirror glaze gave all amateur pâtissiers the possibility to recreate a real gourmet dessert at home. During the meeting, Madame Dessert kept her community up to date on her Instagram stories. 

Customized influencer relations for your hotel  

As a lifestyle, travel and hotel PR agency, we consider what a suitable cooperation might look like and research the right cooperation partners. We initiate the PR campaign under a thematic focus that. With that we want to offer added value to both the influencer and their followers. This allows us to achieve good results even with micro-influencers. For us, there’s one rule that always applies: “quality over quantity“. That’s especially important when working with influencers.  

Learn more about our digital agency Click Connection here!