It’s no secret that hotels and other luxury brands will often give Instagram users with massive followings free swag or stays in exchange for promoting their products to their millions of followers. However, there’s a growing number of Instagram wannabe “influencers” that are inundating hotels around the world with requests–and it’s driving hotels crazy, reports the Atlantic. The publication relates what one marketing and communications manager at a five-star hotel in the Maldives told them:
“Everyone with a Facebook these days is an influencer,” she said. “People say, I want to come to the Maldives for 10 days and will do two posts on Instagram to like 2,000 followers. It’s people with 600 Facebook friends saying, ‘Hi, I’m an influencer, I want to stay in your hotel for 7 days,'” she said. Others send vague one-line emails, like “I want to collaborate with you,” with no further explanation. “These people are expecting five to seven nights on average, all inclusive. Maldives is not a cheap destination.” She said that only about 10 percent of the requests she receives are worth investigating.
And this from the PR manager for a new hotel and day club in Bali:
“They get five to 20 direct inquiries a day from self-titled influencers. The net is so wide, and the term ‘influencer’ is so loose. You can sort the amateurs from the pros very quickly. The vast majority of cold-call approaches are really badly written. It sounds like when you’re texting a friend inviting yourself over for dinner–it’s that colloquial. They don’t give reasons why anyone should invest in having them as a guest.”
Back in January, one hotel in Ireland got so sick of wannabe influencers that they banned all YouTubers and Instagram stars from staying at their hotels. It now looks like other hotels may be tempted to follow suit.
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