You’re lying in bed, thumb hovering mid-scroll, when it happens. A sun-drenched villa appears. A creator swings open balcony doors to a stunning ocean view. Cut to a slow pan of breakfast, a plunge pool, a perfectly framed sunset. You’re not searching anymore. You’re imagining yourself there. And just like that, the booking journey has shifted.
Travel discovery, once dominated by filters, comparison grids and price alerts, is now increasingly led by creators, short-form video, and the irresistible pull of visual storytelling. Hotels aren’t just selling rooms. They’re staging moments.
Manmeet Alhuwalia, Chief Marketing Officer at EaseMyTrip, explains, “Travel discovery today is increasingly influenced by content and visual storytelling, rather than just traditional filters like price or location.”
With its recent ‘Great Indian Summer Travel Sale’, EaseMyTrip leaned into this shift, swapping polished ad films for relatable, lo-fi reels featuring its own teams. The idea, Alhuwalia explains, was to create something ‘natural, participative, and easy for audiences to connect with.’
It’s not just about showing a destination anymore. It’s about helping travellers feel it before they book.
From search bars to scroll feeds
Bharatt Malik, Senior VP – Air and Hotel Business at Yatra Online, notes that discovery today is ‘far more visual and experience-led than it was a few years ago.’ While fundamentals like location and value still matter, travellers increasingly want something ‘memorable and distinctive… moments worth capturing and sharing’.
In other words, if it doesn’t photograph well, it may not even make the shortlist. This has pushed hotels into a new kind of arms race. Not just for amenities, but for aesthetics: camera-first designs, symmetrical pools, statement lobbies, dramatic lighting and corners engineered for the perfect frame.
Amyn Ghadiali, Country Head at Gozoop Creative, calls it a ‘behavioural reset’. Consumers, he says, are no longer choosing hotels purely on functional filters but on ‘aspiration and visual proof’. His blunt assessment: “If the property doesn’t look compelling on camera, it is already losing consideration.”
For platforms like Yatra, this shift is already translating into behaviour. Malik points to rising interest in properties that combine "functionality with strong experiential appeal", reinforcing a broader pivot from selling inventory to showcasing experiences.
Creators: from influencers to itinerary-makers
If discovery has moved to social feeds, creators are the new travel agents. Mrinalini Singh, Associate Director, Influencer Marketing at ARM Worldwide, highlights just how central they’ve become. “Creators are no longer just an amplification lever. They are often the first touchpoint in the decision-making journey.”
In many cases, that journey doesn’t follow a neat funnel. A traveller might discover a boutique stay through a reel, cross-check reviews elsewhere, compare prices on multiple platforms, and only then convert. The scroll is just the beginning, but it’s a powerful one.
This is why brands are shifting serious budgets. Singh notes that many are now allocating 40–50 per cent of their upper-funnel investments to digital and influencer collaborations. But the smarter approach, she argues, is ‘not channel-first, but intent-first’.
Ghadiali echoes this rebalancing. “We’re advising brands to move meaningful budgets from passive awareness channels into digital and creator ecosystems because that’s where travel discovery now happens. Multiple studies show that over 70 per cent of travellers under 40 discover destinations and stays through social content,” he says, adding that traditional media ‘cannot drive desirability in isolation anymore.’
And here’s the twist: authenticity beats polish. “Honest reviews that highlight both strengths and limitations often drive stronger consideration than highly polished, brand-led campaigns,” Singh says.
When content converts
The idea that influencer marketing is just for awareness is quickly fading. Yatra, for instance, treats creator-led content as a performance driver. Malik explains that while creators build intent at the discovery stage, the brand aligns that content with ‘live offers, clear calls to action, and platform-native formats’ to push conversions.
The results are hard to ignore. Recent campaigns have clocked over 4.3 million views and more than 191,000 engagements, signalling not just reach, but resonance.
But the bigger shift is in how success is measured.
“The industry’s biggest mistake is still judging creator marketing by likes and views,” says Ghadiali. “That's a lazy metric.” Instead, he advocates a full-funnel lens, tracking signals like content retention, branded search uplift, landing page behaviour, and actual bookings.
In travel, even the engagement metrics that matter are different. “Saves and shares often matter more than likes,” he notes, because trips are planned, revisited, and shortlisted over time.
Singh reinforces this evolution, pointing to deeper metrics like watch time, click-through rates, itinerary saves, and assisted conversions. The aim is to tie storytelling to tangible business outcomes, not just surface-level engagement.
Or as Ghadiali puts it sharply: if a campaign racks up millions of views but drives no searches, site visits, or bookings, “it wasn’t successful, it was entertainment.”
The experience economy, with a reality check
All of this sits within a broader cultural shift. Sanjay Trehan, Digital Media Advisor, calls it a natural evolution in an ‘attention-deficit age’. Experiential marketing, he says, works because it creates an emotional connection, and few industries lend themselves to that better than travel and hospitality.
But there’s a caveat. “The Indian consumer… is value conscious,” Trehan points out, especially in the mid and lower segments. The dream may begin on a reel, but the final decision still weighs experience against price.
And not all content works. “A badly produced reel can detract from the brand promise and be counterproductive,” he warns.
Designing for the camera, booking for the memory
So where does this leave hotels? Somewhere between set design and service design.
Properties are now being built, styled, and marketed with the camera in mind, but the real challenge is delivering on that promise offline. A beautiful reel might win the click, but a disappointing stay will lose the customer and possibly go viral for the wrong reasons.
The most successful players understand this balance. They don’t just create “Instagrammable” spaces. They create experiences that hold up beyond the frame.
Because in the end, while discovery may have shifted from search to scroll, the outcome hasn’t changed.
You’re still booking a memory.
