Back in my day (not that long ago – I’m only a millennial), recommendations from family and friends, along with a YouTube vlog or a scroll through Pinterest snaps, were the go-to sources of travel inspiration. My, oh my, how things have changed since then.
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Now, short-form videos on TikTok are increasingly shaping where people want to go and what they want to do abroad, especially among Gen Z travellers born between 1997 and 2012.
TUI Musement looked into how social media is influencing how travellers now discover, book, experience and share their holidays.
In the study conducted across Spain, Italy and the UK, the global tours and activities platform found that almost half (48%) of Gen Z respondents cited TikTok as a source of travel inspiration, putting the social media app ahead of recommendations from friends and family, which ranked at 43%.
According to TUI Musement, this points to visual and short-form content growing in influence for travellers seeking new destinations to visit, activities to do and bringing holiday ideas to life.
Overall, more than four in ten travellers (43%) said that seeing a viral post or video led them to either book a trip or go on an activity. This trend was especially common among us millennials at 52% – slightly more so than Gen Z, at 50%.
Influencers were also clearly found to have... influence, with 43% of respondents saying the content creators they follow are a factor in deciding where they go and what they do abroad. As many as 27% said they went as far as to change their destination because of an influencer’s recommendation.
“A single image or video can now inspire travel, and we have steadily increased our focus on how we can best reach and engage our audience through platforms such as Instagram and TikTok," Mirco Fiumene, Managing Director Experiences & CMO, TUI Musement, said.
But social media’s influence doesn’t seem to stop once a person has chosen and arrived at their destination.
In the age of scrolling, the pressure to snap the perfect holiday picture impacts how they share their experiences, with over a third (37%) feeling the need to make their trips look more exciting on their social media profiles. Among Gen Z, this figure rises to almost half, at 45%.
And for some, the search for the perfect post can impact what they do. Nearly four in ten travellers (39%) said they visited a tourist hotspot mainly to take a photo or record a video, while 37% said that, at least occasionally, they would rather go to Insta-famous places than a destination's lesser-known hidden gems.
So, is the holiday experience still about where you go, or how it looks on the social media feed once you get there?