Getting Started · 8 min read

Every week, thousands of hotels around the world offer free stays, complimentary nights, or paid content deals to content creators. But most creators don't know how to find these opportunities, or how to position themselves to land them.

This guide covers the full process: what hotels are actually looking for, how to find the right opportunities, and how to go from zero to your first confirmed collaboration.

Why Hotels Work With Creators (And What They Get From It)

Before you pitch anyone, it helps to understand the hotel's side of the deal. Hotels aren't doing you a favor. They're running a marketing strategy. When a creator stays and posts, the hotel gets:

• Authentic visual content they can reuse across their own marketing
• Social proof reaching an audience that trusts the creator
• Discoverability: new potential guests who wouldn't have found them otherwise
• A cost-effective alternative to traditional paid advertising

Understanding this changes how you pitch. You're not asking for charity. You're offering a business arrangement where both sides gain something real.

What Creators Do Hotels Actually Accept?

The biggest myth in creator travel is that you need a huge following. Many hotels care far more about niche relevance and engagement than raw numbers.

What matters to most hotels:

• Audience fit: Do your followers travel? Do they match the hotel's ideal guest?
• Engagement rate: 10,000 engaged followers often outperform 100,000 passive ones
• Content quality: Hotels are buying your photos and videos as much as your reach
• Niche clarity: Food creators, luxury travel, budget travel, family travel. Specificity helps.
• Professionalism: How you communicate matters as much as your metrics

Boutique properties and independent hotels are often more flexible than large chains. A 2,000-follower creator with beautiful content and a 10% engagement rate can land collaborations that a 50,000-follower creator with poor engagement cannot.

Types of Hotel Collaborations Available

Not all hotel deals are the same. Here are the main types you'll encounter:

Complimentary stays (free nights)

The hotel hosts you for free in exchange for content, typically Instagram posts, Reels, or TikToks. No money changes hands. This is the most common entry point for creators building their portfolio.

Paid UGC deals

The hotel pays you a flat fee to produce photos or video content, often without requiring a post on your personal feed. You are working as a content supplier, which is what is known as hotel UGC. These deals typically range from €150 to €1,500+ depending on deliverables and experience, and because you are not selling reach, your follower count is largely irrelevant. For a full explanation of how this model works, see what hotel UGC is and how creators get paid for it.

Press trips and fam trips

Group trips organized by hotel groups or tourism boards, covering transport, accommodation, and meals. Often require a minimum following but can be a high-value way to build your portfolio quickly.

Ambassador deals

Ongoing relationships with a property or hotel group. Rarer for new creators, but something to work toward as you build a track record.

How to Find Hotels Open to Collaborations

This is the part most guides skip. Where do you actually find hotels that want to work with creators?

A few reliable approaches:

• Dedicated databases: Platforms like Hotel Creators maintain lists of properties that have explicitly opted in to creator partnerships. These are the highest-conversion contacts because the hotel already wants to hear from you.
• Instagram research: Search hashtags like #hotelcollab, #pressstaycreator, #ugchotel. Look at who's tagged the hotel. If they're working with creators, they're open to it.
• Direct outreach to boutique properties: Small independent hotels often have marketing managers who handle creator partnerships directly. A well-crafted email to the right person converts well.
• Tourism board programs: Many national and regional tourism boards run formal creator programs with accommodation included. Check country and city tourism websites.

The Pitch: What to Send and How to Send It

The single biggest factor in whether you get a yes is how you pitch. Most creators make the same mistakes: they pitch too long, they focus on themselves rather than the hotel, and they don't make the value proposition clear.

A good pitch does three things in under 150 words:

1. Establishes who you are and your audience
2. States exactly what you're proposing (dates, deliverables)
3. Makes the hotel's benefit explicit

Keep it short. Marketing managers receive dozens of pitch emails a week. The ones that get read are concise and specific.

What to Deliver After Your Stay

Landing the collaboration is only half the job. Delivering well is what builds your reputation and leads to repeat bookings and referrals.

• Post on the agreed timeline (usually within 1 to 2 weeks of your stay)
• Tag the hotel's official account in every piece of content
• Send a follow-up email with links to all published content
• Share your analytics report (reach, impressions, saves) 1 to 2 weeks after posting

Hotels that receive a professional post-stay report become repeat partners. This is how creators go from one-off deals to a reliable pipeline of free stays and paid work.

Building Your Media Kit

A one-page media kit makes your pitches significantly more effective. It should include:

• Your niche and audience description
• Platform follower counts and engagement rates
• 2 to 4 best content examples
• Previous brand collaborations (if any)
• Contact information

Keep it visual and under two pages. A Canva template designed to match your brand aesthetic works well. Update it quarterly.

Start With the Right Contacts

The fastest path to your first hotel collab is finding properties that are already open to working with creators. Cold-pitching hotels that have never worked with a creator requires far more effort than pitching one that has done it before.

Hotel Creators maintains a database of 33,986+ hotels across 85+ countries that have opted in to creator partnerships, complete with direct contact details so you reach the right person from the start.

If you are just starting out, read the full guide on how to become a hotel content creator, covering the path from first portfolio shoot to first paid deal. When you are ready to make contact, our breakdown of how to pitch a hotel for a collaboration gives you an email template and the five mistakes that get pitches deleted.

Access 33,986+ hotels open to creator collabs

Join creators landing free stays worldwide. Browse hotels by country, filter by collaboration type, and get direct contact details.

Get started →