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Travel Brands Lean on 'Incrementality' as Creator Video Bookings Take Months to Land
Travel marketers say the route from an Instagram or TikTok video to a completed booking rarely follows a straight line, pushing them toward "incrementality" as the measurement of record. Click-based attribution, they argue, captures only a fraction of the effect.
Speaking at the Skift Creator Summit in New York City on September 22, 2026, a panel featuring Diana Lucas, director of marketing science for North America at Meta Platforms, Laurie Blair, senior vice president of global marketing and loyalty at Hyatt, and Ross Borden, founder and CEO of Matador, framed the problem as one of timing rather than tracking.
Lucas said that assessing creator campaigns purely through clicks misses most of their impact. She pointed to the volume of video on Meta's platforms, noting that 60% of the content consumed on Instagram and Facebook is video.
Months can pass between the moment a traveler is inspired by a creator's clip and the moment that traveler moves ahead with a booking, a gap that leaves brands struggling to connect the dots between the post and the purchase.
Rather than linear attribution models, travel brands on the panel said measurement now hinges on "incrementality" — establishing what a campaign added beyond what would have happened anyway. The discussion was part of the summit's programming on creator-led marketing and its measurable returns in the travel sector.