Guide
How Should Travel Creators Pitch Hotels?
A plain method for pitching hotels: who to email, what to offer, what to charge, and how to prove your audience actually books.
By Roomer Editorial · · 7 min read
The short answer
Pitch hotels by emailing the marketing or PR person directly with a short, specific offer: the content you'll make, where it will live, who watches it, and proof that your audience books trips. Send it well ahead of your travel dates, tie it to a need the hotel already has, such as a new opening, a slow season or a renovated room type, and attach a one-page media kit. Ask for a comped stay or a fee, and state your deliverables in writing before you go.
What does a hotel actually want from a creator?
A hotel wants heads in beds and content it can reuse. Everything in your pitch should point at one of those two outcomes.
Most creators pitch their follower count. Hotels have seen too many big accounts drive nothing to trust that number alone. A general manager filling rooms in a shoulder-season week in the Algarve cares less about your reach and more about whether the people watching you are the kind who book a boutique hotel in Portugal.
The second want is assets. Hotel marketing teams always need fresh vertical video of rooms, breakfast, the pool at golden hour, the walk to the old town. If you can shoot that well, you are solving a real problem for them, even before anyone books.
Lead with outcomes, not with you.
Who should you pitch at a hotel?
Pitch the person who owns marketing. At an independent hotel, that's usually the owner or general manager. At a branded or group-owned property, it's the marketing manager, PR manager or a regional communications lead.
Do not send your pitch to the reservations inbox or the generic "info@" address. Those inboxes exist to confirm bookings. Your email will be forwarded, or deleted.
To find the right name:
- Check the hotel's press or media page.
- Look on LinkedIn for "marketing" or "PR" plus the property name.
- For hotel groups, look for a central press contact and ask who handles the property you want.
- Call the front desk and ask who handles marketing. It works more often than it should.
Independent and small boutique hotels are the best place to start. They can say yes without a brand approval chain, and they feel the gap between a full week and an empty one.
When should you pitch a hotel?
Pitch well before your trip, and time it to the hotel's needs rather than your calendar. Weeks of lead time is the floor. For a peak-season stay, ask earlier still, or expect a no.
The strongest timing hooks are the ones the hotel already worries about:
- A new opening or relaunch. They need content and have nothing yet.
- A renovation or new room category. The photos on their site are out of date.
- Shoulder or low season. Empty rooms cost them nothing to fill with you.
- A new restaurant, spa or rooftop. A specific feature they want to promote.
Asking for a beach resort in its busiest fortnight is asking them to give away a room they could sell. Asking for the first week after the rainy season ends is offering them something.
What should a hotel pitch email say?
A hotel pitch email should say who you are, who watches you, exactly what you'll make, and what you want in return. Five short paragraphs at most. If it scrolls on a phone, it's too long.
Subject line
Make it specific to the property. "Content stay proposal: [Hotel name], [month]" beats "Collaboration opportunity". The marketing manager should know what the email is before opening it.
Opening line
Show you know the hotel. Mention the new rooftop, the renovated suites, the fact they reopened after a refurbishment. One sentence. Generic flattery reads as a mail merge.
Your audience, in one or two lines
Describe who watches you in travel terms. "Couples planning long weekends in southern Europe who book mid-range boutique hotels" is useful. A follower count with no context is not.
The offer
List deliverables. A deliverable is a specific piece of content you commit to producing, such as one room-tour reel, a set of stories across your stay, or a dedicated hotel page on your site. Be precise about formats and timing.
State usage rights too. Usage rights define whether, where and for how long the hotel can repost or run your content in its own marketing or ads. Hotels value this. Price it accordingly.
Proof
Link to two or three pieces of past hotel content and your media kit. If you have evidence that your audience books, such as affiliate booking reports or saves and DMs asking for the link, mention it plainly. Our guide to what goes in a travel creator media kit covers how to package this on one page.
The ask
Name your dates and your ask. "Two nights, [dates], for two, in exchange for the deliverables above" is a clean ask. Vague endings like "let me know if you'd be open to something" get vague replies or none.
A template you can adapt
Subject: Content stay proposal — [Hotel], [month]
>
Hi [Name],
>
I saw you've just reopened the garden suites. I make short video guides to boutique stays in [region], watched mostly by couples planning long weekends who book places like yours.
>
I'd like to stay [dates] and produce: one room-tour reel, a story set covering breakfast, the spa and the neighbourhood, and a dedicated bookable page for [Hotel] on my site. You'd get the raw clips for your own channels.
>
Recent hotel work: [link], [link]. Media kit attached.
>
Would two nights for two work in exchange?
>
[Name]
Should you ask for a comped stay or a paid fee?
Ask for a comped stay while you're building a portfolio, and start charging a fee once you can show hotel content that performed and an audience that books. A comped stay is a free room, and sometimes meals, provided in exchange for content.
Our position: comped stays are fine early, but never work for a room alone once you have proof. A free night costs a hotel very little. Your filming, editing and posting time is the expensive part of the deal.
Two rules apply either way:
- Scope it in writing. List deliverables, dates and usage rights in an email both sides confirm. "Some content" becomes a fight later.
- Separate usage rights from posting. Posting to your channels is one thing. The hotel running your footage as a paid ad is another, and it should cost more.
The exception: a property you'd cover anyway, in a destination already on your content plan. Taking the comp there and keeping the deliverables light is a reasonable trade. If you're still working out your positioning, start with how to become a travel creator before you start negotiating fees.
How do you follow up without being annoying?
Follow up once, about a week after the first email, with one new line of value, then stop. Hotel marketing people are busy, and a single nudge often gets the reply.
Don't resend the same email with "just bumping this". Add something: a recent reel from a nearby property, a change in your dates, or a note that you'll be in the area regardless. If there's still no answer, move on and try again next season with a new hook.
A no is useful. Ask whether another time of year would work better. Plenty of hotels say no to August and yes to November.
What should you deliver after the stay?
Deliver everything you promised, on time, and send a short recap email. The recap is what gets you invited back and referred to the sister property.
A good recap includes:
- Links to every live post
- The raw clips, if agreed
- Results you can actually see on your side: views, saves, link clicks, booking clicks
- One sentence on what guests responded to, such as the breakfast terrace or the bathtub with a view
Hotels compare creators. Most never send a recap. Sending one makes you the creator they remember when the next room category launches.
Why does owning your booking page change the pitch?
Owning a bookable page for the hotel turns your pitch from "I'll post about you" into "I'll send you guests". A post fades within days. A page that ranks in search and carries a booking link keeps working long after the stay.
This matters because a hotel can see the difference between reach and bookings. When your content links to a page you control, with your video and a live booking option, you can show booking clicks and earn affiliate commission on the stays that follow. An affiliate commission is a cut of the booking value paid to you when someone books through your link. Our explainer on travel affiliate programs for creators covers how that side works.
It also makes your pitch more durable. A creator whose only asset is a social account is renting attention from a platform that can change its rules. A creator with their own site has something a hotel can point to next year.
How this works on Roomer Pro
Roomer Pro gives you your own travel site, built from your videos, so every hotel you film can get its own page you control. You upload your room tours and hotel reels directly, and Roomer builds bookable pages around them.
That page is the "dedicated hotel page" line in your pitch. Booking rails come via Vio, Stay22, GetYourGuide, Viator and Klook, so a viewer can go from your video to checking dates and booking the hotel or a nearby tour. You keep 100% of commissions on bookings made on your own site.
More than 11,000 creators use Roomer, and around 1M pages are indexed on Google. If you want your next hotel pitch to include a page that keeps earning after the stay, set up your travel site on Roomer Pro.
Frequently asked questions
Do hotels work with small travel creators?
Yes, especially independent and boutique hotels in low or shoulder season. They care more about whether your audience matches their guests and whether you shoot usable content than about raw follower count. Start with properties that have a reason to want content now.
How far in advance should I pitch a hotel?
Give at least several weeks of lead time, and more for peak season. Hotels need time to check occupancy and get approval. Pitching for dates when they have empty rooms makes a yes far more likely.
Should I put my rates in the first pitch email?
If you charge a fee, say so in the first email and put the rates in your media kit, so nobody wastes a round trip. If you're asking for a comped stay, state the deliverables and dates instead. Either way, be clear about what you're asking for.
What is a media kit for hotel pitches?
A media kit is a one-page summary of who you are, who your audience is, examples of past work and what you offer. For hotels, lead with travel-specific audience details and past hotel content. Attach it to every pitch.
Can I use affiliate links on content from a comped hotel stay?
Generally yes, as long as you disclose the comped stay clearly in line with platform rules and local advertising law. Affiliate links let you earn on bookings the content drives after the stay. Check your agreement with the hotel in case it says anything about links.
