TikTok is now where travel inspiration starts

The inspiration layer has moved

Instagram still wins on saved trips and Pinterest boards, but TikTok is where new destinations break through. The format favours the unexpected — the lesser-known ski village, the empty fjord, the side-trip nobody talks about — over the postcard shot.

What used to be a long, multi-channel funnel (inspiration → search → comparison → booking) now often starts with a single 12-second clip and ends with a screenshot saved to a 'maybe' folder.

What works for tourism boards

Three formats outperform on travel TikTok: POV walk-throughs ('a day in this ski village'), counter-intuitive 'travel hacks' that tie back to a destination, and creator collabs where the destination is the backdrop, not the subject.

What underperforms: polished destination ads, drone-only edits, and content that feels like a tourism brochure.

The measurement gap

TikTok attribution is still fuzzy — most clicks don't make it to the destination's own analytics. Branded search lift, newsletter signups during campaign weeks and booking-window shifts are the cleanest proxies until the platform offers better measurement APIs.