‘How a volcano, a hashtag, and a few influencers changed travel forever’

The best stories begin way back when, so allow me to take you back a decade and a half.

The year: 2010. Iceland: Cold, remote, and mostly skipped from an average traveller’s dream itinerary. Back then, only around 459,000 foreigners braved the trip to this Nordic outpost. A significant majority of them, I presume, must have been geology professors looking for an outcrop of rhyolite.

Fast forward to 2024 when the island hosted nearly 2.4 million international visitors! That’s a staggering 400 percent surge in just 14 years, and a doubling of the tourism industry’s share of Iceland’s GDP; from 4.1 percent to 8.1 percent. 

The secret behind Iceland’s spectacular glow-up?

Not geothermal springs or aggressive airline pricing; though those helped. The true sorcery came from social media and the rise of the influencer(s).

In 2010, when Eyjafjallajökull chose to erupt after 187 years of quiet and disrupted flights across Europe, Iceland’s tourism board launched a comeback campaign bravely titled, Inspired by Iceland. Instead of languishing in volcanic gloom, they turned the spotlight on everyday Icelanders and invited the world to join in the storytelling.

Social media lit up. Influencers raced to the opportunity. Some with large followings, others just savvy with a drone. Together, they helped triple tourist arrivals in less than a decade. Iceland went from being the place with hard-to-pronounce names, to becoming the ultimate bucket-list baddie.

And just like that, the power of influencer marketing entered the travel industry’s bloodstream.

Trust me, I’m an Influencer: Why people listen to strangers on the internet

At the heart of influencer marketing is something we’ve always relied on in travel: Trust.

Think of it as the modern version of your well-traveled friend recommending a hidden beach in Bali, except the friend is someone you've never met, and their post just got 80,000 likes.

When people watch an influencer hike a glacier, sip a weirdly good coffee in Peru, or survive an overnight train in Vietnam with their sense of humour intact, they're not just absorbing information. They’re vicariously living it. This builds a connection; and these connections drive decisions.

There’s a reason why influencer marketing now boasts a projected market size of $32.55 billion by 2025 (up from just $1.7 billion a decade ago). If a dozen influencers are showing up at the same Moroccan riad, it must be good, right? This is modern herd behavior at its finest.

This trust often comes from what's known as a parasocial relationship, which psychology defines as a one-way connection where someone feels emotionally close to a media figure or celebrity despite there being no real-life interaction.

AirBnb understood this well in their “Live There” campaign; ditching glossy hotel ads for intimate content from local hosts and creators. They gained over 40,000 uses of the campaign hashtag, a surge in engagement, and an organic reimagining of AirBnb as not just a booking site, but as a cultural gateway.

Influencer connections easily bypass the skepticism we usually reserve for traditional ads. A study found that 73 percent of travelers book trips based directly on influencer recommendations. For those under 40, that number climbs to 84 percent. And no, it’s not just the macro-influencers with oceanfront balconies and drone footage driving the trend.

Micro-influencers, those with under 100,000 followers, often generate better engagement and trust. That’s because their audiences see them not as paid stars, but as peers. It’s social proof, plain and simple: if someone you sort of know, and like, is doing something cool, you probably want to do it too.

But it’s not all Northern Lights and honeymoon bookings. There are landmines, too

Data from the US of A shows that while 78 percent of American adults act on influencer recommendations, nearly 60 percent say they’ve felt duped by blogger advice, at least once.

The same tools that elevate hidden gems can overcrowd and erode them. Dubrovnik, once quaint, had to cap cruise arrivals after too many “Game of Thrones” pilgrims flooded its walls.

Mount Fuji? Locals had to build barriers to block photo ops. Closer home, residents in the uber-photogenic streets of Fontainhas in Goa have to shutter their windows, and put up signs screaming “No Photography” even as teenagers on their summer beach break go on a selfie spree outside their doors.

This isn’t just a problem for the tourism departments to solve. It also reeks of an ethical dilemma that few travel marketing campaigns care to think about.

The travel industry, unlike finance or healthcare, has no built-in system of checks and balances. There’s no “travel code of conduct” that dictates whether a creator should geo-tag a pristine waterfall or respect the locals’ wishes and keep it offline.

This absence of formal guardrails places the onus squarely on the brands, creators, and platforms powering the ecosystem. The ROI case for influencer marketing is unmissable: $6.50 returned for every $1 spent. No wonder 89 percent of marketers say influencer campaigns outperform traditional channels.

And with that power must come discernment

Influencer marketing can't just be about reach. More than ever, the influence has to be grounded in respect.

Respect for the cultures and communities that host us. Respect for the environment, which, unlike follower counts, doesn’t bounce back easily. And respect for audiences, who deserve more than a perfectly staged illusion.

That means travel brands need to build in ethical considerations from the brief itself. Who is the audience? What kind of behavior are we encouraging? Will this campaign benefit the destination, or just the algorithm? We should be asking these questions as seriously as we ask about engagement rates.

Some are beginning to get it. Campaigns that spotlight "destination dupes"—lesser-known alternatives to overcrowded hotspots—are gaining traction. Tourism boards, like those in New Zealand and Scotland, have begun nudging visitors to explore lesser-known trails or visit in off-peak seasons. These are the small but necessary steps toward a more sustainable version of travel storytelling.

Influencer marketing is powerful, yes; but only when wielded thoughtfully. The success of travel marketing shouldn't be measured just by the bookings it drives, but also by the reinforced balance between discovery and preservation.

Brands must partner wisely, brief lightly, and let storytellers show the blemishes alongside the beauty. Do that, and you tap into a marketing lever that delivers a six-to-one return, and can turn a chilly volcanic island into the hottest ticket in Europe.

Because ultimately, the best kind of trip is one that feels like it came from a trusted friend. Even if that friend lives in Bali, vlogs daily, and hasn’t worn real pants since 2018.