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Planning a trip to a new destination can be challenging when there are so many possibilities to choose from. This is why honest reviews become essential in the leisure, travel, and tourism industry.
Nowadays, many travellers seek recommendations from their closest friends, family, or content shared by fellow visitors. This is an example of how powerful social proof is in today’s society. When people see their peers sharing their experiences, it creates an emotional connection that traditional sales-focused content often lacks.
Incorporating user-generated content in tourism marketing can be highly effective. When the reality of a destination aligns with users’ holiday dreams, it becomes much easier for them to commit to the important booking decision, even before they arrive.
Let’s have a look at how these leisure, travel, and tourism brands are using UGC and how they raised their engagement and increased their bookings.
User-generated content has proven to be an exceptionally powerful and transformative tool for travel and tourism brands, consistently demonstrating remarkable effectiveness in addressing industry challenges through several key approaches. This authentic, visitor-created content format stands out as a particularly valuable solution, offering unique ways to showcase destinations and engage with travellers:
By leveraging UGC, travel and tourism brands can create a more inclusive, authentic, and engaging marketing strategy that resonates with modern travellers while addressing industry-specific challenges. Let’s check some real Leisure, Travel and Tourism brands’ results with UGC.
Deciding where to travel can be an exciting yet challenging task. The world is full of diverse destinations, each offering unique experiences and attractions. When you feature your community on your site, they feel heard and connected to the brand, resulting in greater satisfaction.
As a result, it leads to a rise in engagement and interaction rates. Made in Bern is an excellent example of this.
The brand has successfully cultivated a special community of customers who actively post content for the company, showing the amazing landscapes and destinations they will find when they visit the Bern region. Discover how Made in Bern is making the most of Flowbox platform.
The Guggenheim Bilbao Museum attracts many international visitors, who flock to the art gallery to admire its exhibitions and experience the cultural innovation it offers.
With the influx of visitors, the museum generated a wealth of content. In 2022, as they launched their new website, they decided to leverage this content by incorporating it into the site.
They began collecting an average of 1,235 user-generated images and videos each month. Read the case study on how The Guggenheim Bilbao benefits from UGC.
We consider UGC to be a good tool in most sectors since it is a way to involve followers on social networks or users of the company’s website in the project. But, it is true that in the case of museums, the photos are usually very attractive and appreciated. In our case, the Museum’s own architecture and the richness of the exhibitions themselves make the photos shared by users very attractive. Vivid and ‘real’ photos convey a lot and can encourage people to want to visit.
The Marketing and Digital Design Departments at The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
As a result of audience interaction with the brand and its content, the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum experienced a 7.6% increase in its engagement rate.
Incorporating UGC in emails can boost open rates, increase click-through rates, and ultimately drive conversions, making it an invaluable strategy for any brand looking to strengthen its relationship with its audience.
Read the case study on how Zuid-Limburg benefits from UGC. They increased their click-through rate by 8 % through their use of UGC in this case study.
Since integrating Flowbox into the newsletters, the VVV Zuid-Limburg team has experienced a boost in click rates, with around 8% of recipients clicking on the Flowbox element.
Our goal is to activate residents as well as tourists and encourage them to share their stories. It’s a lot more credible when other people tell the Zuid-Limburg story instead of us. For the visitors, it’s a pleasure to be involved, and they feel more connected.
Babette Vanom – Marketing Project Coordinator at VVV Zuid-Limburg.
This implementation has allowed the brand to significantly reduce the use of stock images, replacing them with authentic photos that enhance engagement in both the website and newsletters.
Showcasing real-life testimonials and experiences helps to build trust and attract new customers by highlighting the vibrant community around the brand. Once you’ve gathered enough content from your loyal customers, what comes next? How can your brand incorporate this content into your website?
One of the key aspects of Apollo’s user-generated content strategy is how they collect and categorise all their tagged content.
The brand encourages its customers to post content in their social media profiles about their trips and tag @apollo. It also organises competitions as part of their ‘tagging Thursday’ initiative, where they lift UGC tags in their Instagram stories with the aim of getting people to tag the brand in their holiday pictures.
Once they have gathered all the social content, they integrate it into the website section according to the customer’s destination.
For example, some users who have travelled to Croatia and, in addition to tagging the brand, also add the location of their holidays, Apollo integrates it into a carousel of content related to Croatia. This way, future travellers can get a better idea of the activities or landscapes they will find there.
This approach is an excellent way to organise and manage existing content, enhancing navigation and improving the user experience. By categorising content effectively, Apollo makes it simpler for users to access relevant information quickly and effortlessly.
Find out more about how Apollo has leveraged all their existing content with Flowbox in our Flowboxer of the Month article.
The Flowbox UGC Platform has many great tools and capabilities that can help any Leisure, Travel and Tourism brand, no matter how big or small. Here is an overview of the key platform features that can help you automate UGC tasks:
Flowbox’s Collection Tool continuously monitors social channels (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and more) for brand mentions, tags, and designated hashtags.
Also, the Media Uploader feature enables your customers to upload UGC directly through your website or via a shareable link – no social media needed.
All captured posts flow into a single dashboard, ensuring your team never misses valuable user‑generated content.
The Moderation tool is a suite of AI‑powered moderation capabilities that lets you curate high‑quality, on‑brand UGC at scale:
Create, schedule, and distribute both user‑generated and branded content across multiple social platforms—all from within Flowbox. This unified interface eliminates manual posting, streamlines your social calendar, and preserves the authentic voice of your community.
Collect valuable customer feedback with highly customisable rating and review forms, moderate high volumes of ratings and reviews from within our platform or opt for auto moderation fields that optimise your workflow, then automatically display them directly on your product pages with different configurations to choose from.
With built‑in Google Analytics 4 integration, Flowbox lets you track every UGC interaction—clicks, conversions, engagement paths—alongside your broader marketing metrics. Use these insights to refine gallery placements, content mix, and UGC campaign tactics in a single, data‑driven dashboard.
Implementing a UGC strategy has become essential for travel and tourism brands looking to build authentic connections with their audience. Success stories like Made in Bern and The Guggenheim Bilbao demonstrate that leveraging visitor content can significantly impact both destination appeal and booking rates.
A well-executed UGC strategy serves multiple purposes: it provides social proof, creates authentic destination representation, helps potential visitors visualise experiences in real-world settings, and builds a sense of community around the destination.
By incorporating traveller photos, reviews, and experiences into their marketing mix, tourism brands can create a more trustworthy and inspiring travel planning experience.
The key to success lies in not just collecting UGC, but strategically organising and integrating it throughout the visitor journey. From social media to destination pages, visitor content should be carefully categorised and seamlessly woven into the brand’s digital presence, creating an engaging narrative that resonates with potential travellers and turns browsers into bookers.
Book a demo with Flowbox and we’ll show you how a UGC platform can boost your brand sales.
