In a hotel chain with several properties, hotel influencer marketing works as a shared program with each hotel running its own campaigns. Headquarters sets the rules that apply to every hotel: criteria for choosing creators, a standard contract, advertising disclosure and how results are measured. Each hotel publishes its experiences with its own dates and conditions, designed around its low season, and chooses creators based on the source market its guests come from, not just on the destination. Content is commissioned so it can be reused, bookings are steered to the chain's own website with an advantage over online travel agencies (OTAs), and results are measured hotel by hotel, with a dedicated code or link.
What does the shared program decide, and what does each hotel decide?
If each general manager negotiates on their own, you end up with different terms for the same thing and results nobody can add up. A single campaign for the whole chain doesn't work either: a city hotel and a beach hotel share neither a low season nor their guests. The decisions have to be split.
| Decision | Shared program (headquarters) | Each hotel |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Direct bookings, off-season occupancy, owned content | Which dates it needs to fill, and with which guests |
| Creators | Minimum criteria: a genuine audience and a style that fits the brand | Its source markets and themes |
| Experience | A common format for the offer and for what is asked in return | What it includes: nights, meal plan, spa or activities |
| Calendar | An annual calendar that spreads the effort | Its slow weeks and blackout dates |
| Contract and disclosure | Standard contract, usage rights and advertising disclosure | Applied the same way at every hotel |
| Measurement | KPIs, codes and links with the same naming convention | Its own code, link and report |
The standard contract is the piece most often overlooked. The guide on what a contract with an influencer should include (in Spanish) goes through the clauses, including when the payment is a stay.
How do you choose creators based on each destination's source markets?
A hotel isn't filled by people who live nearby, but by people who travel to it. A local creator shows off the surroundings very well, but if their followers live in the same area, they rarely book a night there.
- Get your source markets from your own data. Each hotel's booking system shows which countries and regions its guests come from, and at what time of year.
- Look for creators whose audience is there: the country, age and language of their followers, not just where the creator lives.
- Cross-check by theme. A family hotel fits parenting creators, a conference hotel fits business profiles and a hotel with a spa fits wellness creators.
Which experiences should you publish, and how is the content reused?
Each hotel publishes specific experiences: what it offers, which dates it is valid for and what it asks for in return, for example a reel, a few stories and a set of photos. The guide on what to offer an influencer for a stay at your hotel (in Spanish) explains how to put one together.
In a chain, content shouldn't end its life on the creator's account. If the shared brief asks for the same pieces at every hotel (room, breakfast, common areas, surroundings), within a few months you have a library of material featuring real people for the website, social media and ads. To use it outside the creator's profile, usage rights have to be agreed in advance: channels, countries and duration.
How do you plan each hotel's low season?
A beach hotel, a city hotel that relies on conferences and a mountain hotel have their slow periods at different times, so the calendar is built hotel by hotel and headquarters puts it in order.
- Mark the slow weeks using occupancy from previous years, not gut feeling.
- Set conditions for each experience: season, days of the week, minimum nights, whether long weekends and holidays are excluded, and always subject to availability.
- Plan ahead. Many collaborations are agreed weeks in advance, and what is filmed in one slow period helps sell the next.
- Stagger the hotels so the central team isn't running every campaign at the same time.
How do you steer bookings to your own website instead of OTAs?
The European Hotel Distribution Study by HOTREC, the European hospitality association, published on September 16, 2026 with data from 2,713 hotels, puts bookings made directly with the hotel at 51.3% and those coming through OTAs at 29.9%. These are European figures; in Mexico, the useful benchmark is the chain's own channel data. Every booking a creator brings to your own website arrives without an intermediary's commission and with the guest's data in-house.
- Link to the hotel's page on the chain's website, not to its listing on an OTA.
- Offer an advantage that only exists on your own website, preferably an extra (breakfast, late checkout, a room upgrade) rather than a discount, and review the parity agreements signed with each OTA beforehand.
- Compare the cost of that advantage with the commission you pay each OTA under your contract: if it costs less, every booking you redirect improves your margin.
How do you measure each hotel's results?
Measuring the chain as a whole hides which hotel, which creator and which experience worked.
| What to measure | How it is measured at each hotel | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Reach and engagement | Stats for each piece, from the creator or via API | Knowing how many people each hotel reached |
| Website visits | A link with UTM parameters per hotel and creator | Seeing which content drives traffic |
| Direct bookings | A dedicated code per hotel and creator in the booking engine | Attributing bookings to each collaboration |
| Occupancy | Room nights sold on the experience dates versus the previous year | Seeing whether the low season moved |
| Cost | Complimentary nights, included extras and payments to creators | Calculating the return per property |
That way each hotel has its own return, and headquarters can compare similar hotels. The guide to calculating the ROI of an influencer campaign (in Spanish) explains how to put costs and bookings into the same calculation.
Does a stay given in exchange for content have to be disclosed as advertising?
Yes, both when the stay is a straight exchange and when the creator is also paid. In Spain, commercial communications on the internet must be clearly identifiable under Ley 34/2002 (Spain's information society services act), article 20, and the AEA, Autocontrol and IAB Spain code of conduct on influencers in advertising (2025 version, in force since October 1, 2025) also counts a free invitation, product or service as consideration. Mexico's Federal Consumer Protection Law (LFPC) requires advertising to be truthful and not misleading, and Profeco recommends hashtags such as #PublicidadPagada and #PatrocinadoPor.
In a chain, the safe approach is to set this out in the standard contract for every hotel: a clear mention of the collaboration or of the hotel's invitation, visible in the piece itself, plus each social network's branded content tool. The guide on Spain's influencer law (in Spanish) explains what else is required of large accounts.
Where does VIVIO fit in?
On VIVIO Club, the chain publishes each hotel's experiences with their dates and conditions. Creators who are a good fit, from among the network's more than 3,000 verified creators in Spain and Mexico, apply for them, and the chain chooses whom to accept after reviewing their metrics, their style and where their audience is. The chain then approves or rejects the content of each collaboration from the app, and metrics come in through Meta's official API. Creators never pay anything on VIVIO. The Ultimate plan includes unlimited users and multi-country operation, so the chain can run campaigns at several hotels from a single dashboard, with a consolidated report; for large portfolios there is a custom Enterprise plan.
The VIVIO page for hotels and hotel chains explains how to get started, and the hotel case studies show how other properties use it. To compare options, see who VIVIO is for and the plans; for a program managed end to end, VIVIO Agencia is the service for large brands.
Frequently asked questions
What is hotel influencer marketing?
It is the part of hotel marketing that works with content creators: the hotel offers them a stay, a payment or both, and they show the experience to their audience to attract bookings from source markets.
Are influencers managed by headquarters or by each hotel?
Both, with different roles. Headquarters sets the criteria, the standard contract, advertising disclosure and measurement; each hotel decides its dates, its offer and its source markets, and follows up on its collaborations.
Do you have to pay influencers, or is a stay enough?
It depends on what you ask for. Many hotel collaborations work on an exchange basis, and others combine a stay with payment when more pieces, usage rights or a very specific audience are required. In both cases, the content has to be disclosed as advertising.
How do you know how many bookings an influencer brings in?
With a dedicated code or link for each creator and each hotel that leads to a booking on the chain's website. The booking engine counts the bookings that use the code, and web analytics counts the visits that come through the link.