News & analysis
YouTube's EU Report: 20,000 Creators on Funding, Visibility
YouTube surveyed over 20,000 creators across all 27 EU member states for a new report on what is helping and hindering Europe's creator economy.
By Roomer Editorial · · 3 min read
What is the "Creative Capital" report?
YouTube published a report called "Creative Capital," built from a survey of more than 20,000 creators across all 27 EU member states. YouTube describes it as the first time EU creators have given a unified account of what they need to grow their businesses.
The report finds a consistent pattern: creators say they are shut out of decision-making, traditional funding schemes, and official data about their own industry.
How big is YouTube's creator economy in the EU?
YouTube says its creative ecosystem contributed more than €8.4 billion to EU GDP in 2025 and supported over 220,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
YouTube also points to its Partner Program, which pays eligible creators more than half of the revenue their channels generate. The company frames this as fuel for creators to reinvest in staff, studios, and new shows.
One number stands out for anyone building an audience outside their home country: over 70% of watch time on content from EU27 channels comes from viewers outside the EU.
What did creators flag as a risk?
YouTube's survey found that 71% of creators warn that reduced visibility would directly threaten their livelihoods.
That is a specific, measurable fear, not a vague complaint about algorithms.
What is YouTube recommending?
The report lays out five steps meant to remove friction for creators, though the source does not detail each one individually. The overall framing: Europe does not need new institutions for its creator economy, it needs easier access to the ones that already exist — funding programs, data, and a seat in policy conversations.
YouTube's pitch is that recognizing creators as central economic actors, and giving them a level playing field, would let more Europeans turn a channel into what the report calls a "thriving, world-class business."
That is a specific, measurable fear, not a vague complaint about algorithms.
Roomer Editorial's take
This is a lobbying document dressed as research, and that is fine. YouTube wants European regulators to see creators as an industry worth protecting, not a loophole to close. The 71% visibility-anxiety stat matters for travel creators specifically, because travel content lives and dies on discovery. A Lisbon hotel reel or a Prague city guide only earns anything if it gets seen by someone who didn't already know to look for it.
Roomer Editorial's view: the dependency the report describes — one platform controlling whether your business survives — is exactly the argument for owning a second channel that isn't subject to someone else's recommendation engine. A travel creator with 40,000 YouTube subscribers covering Balkan road trips can turn that same video library into a Roomer site: bookable pages built from the videos already made, with booking rails through Vio, Stay22, GetYourGuide, Viator, and Klook, and 100% of commissions kept when a booking happens on that creator's own site. Roomer currently has over 11,000 creators doing this, with roughly 1 million pages indexed on Google — a second surface area that doesn't move when a platform adjusts its feed.
None of this replaces YouTube. The EU report makes clear how much of a travel creator's audience and income still runs through it, and that is not changing soon. But a report where 71% of respondents flag visibility as a risk to their livelihood is also a case for not putting all of that risk in one place.
Roomer Editorial's view: start small. Pick a handful of videos you already own the rights to, turn each into a bookable page, and treat it as a test rather than a rebuild of your whole channel. If a Lisbon walkthrough or a Balkan road trip video converts even one booking a month on its own page, you have proof the second surface works before you invest more time in it.
The action: if your travel content lives only on YouTube, pick your ten best-performing videos and build out bookable pages from them this week, so at least one part of your business doesn't depend on someone else's algorithm.
Source: YouTube Official Blog — What 20,000 creators told us about unleashing Europe's potential
