Influencer Marketing in Tourism 2026: Costs, ROI & Case Studies for DMOs

Over 4.3 million Instagram followers. 82+ countries visited. 500+ brand collaborations — including Tourism New Zealand, Visit Saudi Arabia, Visit Turkey, ProColombia, and many other international tourism boards. This is the reach you can achieve as a Tourism Board You can achieve this by collaborating with Max Haase, the most influential German travel influencer and one of the most influential in Europe.

Influencer marketing in tourism has become the most effective channel for modern marketing in recent years. Destination marketing Developed. Consumers and travelers today trust authentic recommendations from travel creators more than traditional advertising. Tourism boards worldwide, from New Zealand to Saudi Arabia to Colombia, are therefore relying on collaborations with travel influencers who make their destinations tangible and bookable. In this guide, you'll learn how professional travel influencer campaigns work, which strategies are effective, and what measurable results real tourism board campaigns with Max Haase have already achieved.

Why Tourism Boards will rely on travel influencers in 2026

Today, travelers research on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube before booking a trip. They follow travel creators, are inspired by their destination suggestions, and base their booking decisions on authentic reviews. Traditional tourism marketing—TV commercials, print ads, glossy brochures—barely reaches this modern customer journey anymore.

The limits of traditional destination marketing

• Loss of trust: Consumers and travelers know that advertising photos are staged. A perfectly retouched hotel image creates skepticism instead of enthusiasm.
• High scattering losses: Traditional media reach millions of people, but few of them actually plan a trip to your destination.
• No commitment: Print and TV are one-way streets — no comments, no saves, no community interaction, no viral effects.
• No long-term value: When the ad stops running, the visibility disappears. No SEO effect, no organic follow-up on social media platforms.

Tourism New Zealand

Destination Campaign in New Zealand in collaboration with @purenewzealand (Tourism New Zealand). The campaign achieved measurable results across all channels:

• Reel „Active Side of New Zealand“ — 4.4 million views, 123,565 likes, 358 comments
• Reel „Road Trip Through New Zealand“ — 2.8 million views, 83,245 likes, 406 comments
• Slideshow post „My favorite highlights“ — 1.7 million views, 48,400 likes, 221 comments
• 15 Instagram Stories — 120,000–170,000 views each, totaling approximately 2.2 million story impressions.

Combined reach of all formats: over 11 million views (2 Reels + 1 Post + 15 Stories), over 255,000 Likes and 985+ Comments.

Visit Saudi

Destination Campaign in Saudi Arabia in cooperation with @visitsaudi (Visit Saudi). Publicly available results:

• Reel 1 — Visit Saudi — 4.4 million views, 123,565 likes, 358 comments
• Reel 2 — Visit Saudi — 2.8 million views, 83,245 likes, 406 comments
• 15 Instagram Stories — 120,000–170,000 views each, totaling approximately 2.2 million story impressions.

Combined reach of all formats: over 9.4 million views (4.4M + 2.8M Reels + approx. 2.2M Story Impressions), over 206,000 Likes and 760+ Comments.

All reach and engagement figures are directly available on the public Instagram profile. @_maxhaase_ Visible and verifiable by everyone.

Tourism Boards with which Max Haase has already collaborated

The following tourism boards and destination marketing organizations already rely on the reach and content quality of Max Haase:

• Tourism New Zealand 🇳🇿
• Visit Saudi 🇸🇦
• Visit Turkey 🇹🇷
• Visit Colombia 🇨🇴
• Visit Morocco 🇲🇦
• Armenia Tourism 🇦🇲
• Basque Country Tourism 🇪🇸
• Gateway Brazil 🇧🇷
• Visit Nicaragua 🇳🇮

… as well as many other international Tourism Boards and DMOs — a total of over 30 Tourism Boards from 82+ countries visited.

Why Tourism Boards worldwide work with Max Haase

There are many travel influencers. What makes a professional collaboration with Max Haase truly valuable for your tourism board?

• 4.3 million+ Instagram followers: Reach that is unattainable with traditional tourism marketing at comparable costs. Verifiable live on @_maxhaase_.
• 1.3 % average engagement rate: 30–160 % above the industry average for Mega-Creator (Industry Benchmark: 0.5–1.0 %). Your campaign will not only be seen, but actively liked, commented on, and saved.
• 82+ countries visited: Real travel experience on every continent. Max knows the customer journey of international travelers firsthand.
• Premium production from a single source: Drone, camera with professional lenses, action cam for action shots — complete photo, video and drone production without an external crew. This saves your tourism board the logistics and coordination costs of a full-service film crew.
• Multilingual content: Content in German and English — you reach both the high-spending DACH target group and an international audience with a single creator.
• Couple option with Janet Dannehl: If you book Max + Janet As a Travel Couple, you can reach a combined audience of over 6.7 million followers from two perspectives — perfect for destinations that want to target couples or families.
• SEO-optimized blog content: Each major campaign will also be featured as a detailed travel report (3,000+ words) on max-haase.com Published — permanent content that generates organic traffic for your destination for years to come.
• 10+ years of experience as a travel creator: Over 500 successful brand collaborations give you the assurance that your campaign will be professionally planned, implemented and reported.

4 Strategies for Successful Travel Influencer Campaigns

The most effective influencer collaborations in tourism follow a clear pattern. Here are the strategies that have been particularly successful in my previous Tourism Board campaigns:

Strategy 1: The Multi-Day Destination Campaign

Strategy 2: The Long-Term Ambassador Partnership

Instead of a one-off campaign, your tourism board collaborates with a creator for 1-2 years. The travel influencer visits your destination multiple times, at different times of the year, and becomes an authentic brand ambassador. The community develops a genuine connection to the destination—and each return visit strengthens credibility. This strategy is particularly effective if the creator also maintains highlight reels and bio mentions throughout the entire contract period.

Strategy 3: The Content-First Approach

Some tourism boards book a creator primarily for the Content production — not just for reach. You receive high-quality drone footage, photos, and videos that your tourism board can use on its own channels, website, in print materials, and in advertising campaigns. This is particularly attractive if you also want to expand your owned media library with professional material.

Strategy 4: The Couple Campaign with Max & Janet

Travel Couples offer a unique package: double the reach, double the perspective (male and female), and cross-promotion between two accounts. With Max Haase and Janet Dannehl as a Travel Couple, you reach a combined audience of over 6.7 million followers. This form of collaboration is particularly effective for destinations targeting couples, honeymooners, or families.

What tourism boards should avoid in influencer collaborations

Not every influencer collaboration in tourism is a success. These are the five most common mistakes — and how to avoid them:

Mistake 1: Only looking at follower numbers

Follower counts alone don't tell the whole story—the combination of reach AND engagement rate is crucial. A mega-creator with over 4 million followers and an engagement rate of over 1 (significantly above the industry average) will deliver the greatest impact: maximum visibility for your destination, coupled with a community that actively likes, comments, and saves content. Always ask for the current media kit with verified audience data, engagement statistics, and reference campaigns with other tourism boards.

Mistake 2: Too much creative control

Tourism boards that dictate every word, approve every image crop, and control every posting time end up with stiff content that fails to engage either the community or the algorithm. Trust the creator—they know their community better than any marketing agency. A good briefing defines goals and key messages while allowing room for authentic execution.

Mistake 3: Unrealistic expectations of direct bookings

Travel influencer marketing is primarily an awareness and consideration channel. Anyone expecting thousands of instant bookings after a single story will be disappointed. The effect is more long-term: your destination lands on your followers' mental "bucket lists" and is considered when planning their next trip—often months or even years later.

Mistake 4: Bartering instead of professional cooperation

Mistake 5: One-off deals instead of a long-term strategy

A single campaign is like a single TV commercial: it creates a brief buzz that quickly fades. Tourism boards with the best results think in terms of annual plans: Which creators are right for which season? How can long-term brand ambassadors be cultivated? How do different creator types complement each other throughout the year?

What determines the investment in a travel influencer campaign

One of the most frequent questions tourism boards receive is: What does a professional travel influencer collaboration cost? The honest answer: It depends. The investment depends on several factors that make each campaign unique.

These factors determine the scope of your campaign

• Campaign format: Story set, reel series, multi-day road trip, brand ambassador program — each format has a different production effort and different reach effects.
• Duration of the trip: A 3-day short visit generates less content than a 10-day multi-day road trip through your destination.
• Number of deliverables: How many Reels, Posts, Stories, Highlight Saves, Blog Articles, Drone Footage, and Photo Libraries do you need?
• Usage rights: Would you like to reuse the content for your own marketing channels, print materials, or paid ads? This is included in an individual license package.
• Couple or solo booking: Booking Max + Janet as a travel couple offers double the reach and two perspectives — the campaign scope is correspondingly larger.
• Travel expenses and logistics: Flights, premium accommodations, local transfers, insurance, equipment transport — these factors are calculated individually for each Tourism Board campaign.

Compared to traditional tourism marketing—a full-page travel magazine ad, a regional TV spot, or a trade fair appearance at ITB—a travel influencer campaign is, in most cases, the more efficient investment. You get measurable reach, ongoing content for owned media, an engaged community, and long-term SEO benefits through accompanying blog articles.

My management team creates a customized offer for each campaign, perfectly tailored to your goals, timeframe, and budget. Simply contact me via [link/contact information]. Contact form or directly via email to [email protected] with your destination, the planned timeframe and your campaign goals.

Measurement and ROI: How Tourism Boards track success

A common argument against influencer marketing in tourism is: "You can't measure success." This isn't true. Professional travel influencer campaigns deliver detailed KPIs from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube analytics—directly with screenshots from the respective creator insights dashboards.

Primary KPIs for your campaign

• Impressions & Reach: How many unique people have viewed your content?
• Reel Views & Plays: How many times have your video content been played? (My tourism board reels regularly get millions of views.)
• Engagement Rate: Likes, comments and saves in relation to reach
• Story Views & Completion Rate: How many of your story frames are watched to the end?
• Website clicks: Direct clicks to the destination website via link sticker or bio link
• Saves: Number of users who saved your post for later (= serious travel interest)

Secondary KPIs for impact analysis

• Brand Lift: Changes in brand awareness and perception of your destination (measurable through surveys)
• User-Generated Content: Do followers create their own content about your destination after the campaign?
• Earned Media Value: What would the same reach have cost through paid advertising?
• Booking referrals: By using UTM tracking links and promo codes, you can attribute direct bookings.

The international market: Why tourism boards worldwide rely on German travel influencers

International tourism boards particularly like to use German travel influencers like Max Haase for two reasons: the economic importance of the German-speaking source market and the reach of an established mega-creator on the most important social media platforms.

The economic strength of the German-speaking travel market

• 94+ billion euros German consumers spend an average of [amount] annually on trips abroad — a world leader in Europe
• 55+ million International trips per year from Germany
• 100+ million potential travelers in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
• Individual travel is growing steadily: The core target group aged 25–44 increasingly books individually and is inspired by travel influencers rather than package holiday catalogs.

Multilingual reach for global tourism boards

Max Haase's content doesn't just reach the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). With English captions, international hashtags, and posts that are also consumed by followers in the USA, UK, Australia, and the Middle East, his reach is internationally viable. For a global tourism board that wants to address multiple source markets simultaneously, this is a crucial advantage—you reach an international audience with a single campaign instead of just one language area.

Checklist: How to launch your first travel influencer campaign as a tourism board

If you have little experience with travel influencer collaborations, here's a tried-and-tested 7-step roadmap to getting started. Influencer marketing in tourism:

Step 1: Define your target audience

Before you look for a travel influencer, you need to be clear about your target audience. Adventure and experience travelers aged 25–44? Traveling couples? Luxury and premium travelers? Independent travelers who find inspiration through social media? The target audience determines the creator type, the platform, and the appropriate content formats—and a creator who can serve all these segments from a single profile saves you the hassle of coordinating with multiple partners.

Step 2: Define your campaign goals

What do you want to achieve? Pure awareness? More search queries? Direct bookings? Building a content library for owned media? Define 2-3 measurable goals with concrete KPI targets — they will determine the briefing, the campaign strategy, and the reporting.

Step 3: Research and contact suitable travel influencers

The most important selection criteria for a professional travel influencer: Verifiable engagement rate above 1%, professional photo and drone quality at broadcast level, demonstrable track record with international tourism boards, multilingual content (German + English), accompanying SEO blog content for long-term organic traffic, and the ability to deliver the entire content production in-house—without an external crew. You can contact me directly via the Collaboration page or contact me via email at [email protected] — my management will get back to you as soon as possible.

Step 4: Develop briefing and campaign concept

A good briefing includes: campaign goal, target audience, key messages, must-visit locations, desired deliverables (number of reels, posts, stories, blog entries), timeline, budget, and usage rights. It also leaves room for the creator's creative interpretation—the best content emerges when the creator can incorporate their own storytelling.

Step 5: Finalize the contract and terms

A professional contract regulates: fees and payment terms (usually: 50 before travel, 50 after publication), deliverables with deadlines, usage rights (duration, territory, channels), approval process (typically one round of revisions), labeling requirements (#Advertising / #Ad / Paid Partnership Tag).

Step 6: Actively monitor and evaluate the campaign

During the campaign: Quick check-ins, but no micromanagement. After the campaign: Request a report, analyze KPIs, document learnings. What worked particularly well? What would you do differently next time? These insights will inform the next campaign.

Step 7: Think long-term and build ambassadors

The first campaign is a test. If it works: Offer a long-term ambassador contract. The impact multiplies over time—the creator becomes a credible advocate for your destination, not just a one-off advertising face. This is precisely how the most valuable tourism board partnerships are formed.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is influencer marketing in tourism?

Influencer marketing in tourism is the cooperation between tourism boards and travel influencers, where a creator authentically experiences a destination and uses their reach to make the destination known to potential travelers.

Why do tourism boards rely on travel influencers?

Travel influencers reach precisely the target group that makes travel decisions today via social media—based on personal recommendations rather than traditional advertising. A single campaign can achieve several million views, as demonstrated by Max Haase's Tourism New Zealand and Visit Saudi Cases.

How much does a travel influencer campaign cost?

The investment depends on the format, duration, deliverables, and usage rights. My management team creates a customized offer for each campaign—simply contact me with your campaign goals via [link/platform name]. Contact form.

How do I measure the success of a Tourism Board campaign?

I provide data on reach, engagement rate, Reel views, story views, saves, website clicks, and UTM tracking. With my campaigns, you'll receive a detailed report including screenshots from Instagram Insights upon completion.

How many followers does Max Haase really have?

Max Haase currently has over 4.3 million Instagram followers. @_maxhaase_. The number is verifiable live and is regularly documented in media kits.

Which Tourism Boards has Max Haase already worked with?

Tourism New Zealand, Visit Saudi, Visit Turkey, Visit Colombia, Visit Morocco, Armenia Tourism, Basque Country, Gateway Brazil, Visit Nicaragua — and many more. In total, over 30 Tourism Boards and DMOs from 82+ visited countries.

Can I book Max Haase and Janet as a travel couple?

Yes. With Max + Janet as a couple, you reach a combined audience of over 6.7 million followers from two perspectives — ideal for destinations that want to target couples or families.

How do I book Max Haase for a Tourism Board campaign?

Write about the Collaboration page or by email to [email protected] with your destination, planned timeframe, and campaign goals. My management will get back to you as soon as possible with a customized offer.

Conclusion: Tourism boards that now rely on travel influencers are winning.

The change in the international Destination marketing This isn't a vision of the future—it's happening now. Tourism boards, DMOs, and destination marketing organizations that strategically use professional influencer marketing in tourism achieve measurably better results than those that rely solely on traditional channels.

The formula for success is clear: Work with a travel influencer who combines a reach of millions with an above-average engagement rate, who delivers professional photo, video, and drone production from a single source, who has proven experience with international tourism boards, and who also produces SEO-optimized blog content. Give them creative freedom (briefing yes, script no) and think long-term (ambassadors rather than one-off deals) — as Tourism New Zealand, Visit Saudi, and many other international tourism boards already do.

Read more:

• Tourism Boards & Travel Influencers — The Complete Guide
• Luxury Adventure Travel — The best experiences for discerning travelers
• Cooperation with Tourism Boards — Here's how it works
• What is a travel influencer? — A guide for brands
• Collaboration with Influencers — A Guide for Tourism Boards

About the author

Max Haase

Travel Content Creator · Drone Photographer · Visual Storyteller

Since over 10 years professional travel creator with over 4.2 million followers. Specializing in high-end tourism board collaborations and visual travel storytelling.

4.2MFollowers

82+Countries

500+Cooperations

10+Years