It looks like the days when TikTok was known exclusively as the source of viral entertainment videos have passed. The social network became one of the most popular travel discovery apps. Users explore places and activities, search for accommodation, restaurants and do extensive research before making their travel bookings.
If you represent a tourism board, hotel, travel business, destination, airline company or any other organization involved in marketing a destination, TikTok is the channel you cannot ignore. People who are planning their vacations tend to explore destinations using videos posted on this social network.
These changes were emphasized during the TikTok masterclass which took place at Africa’s Travel Indaba 2026 and included insights from the Partnerships Lead for Mid-Market, Digital Natives and Retail, TikTok Global Business Solutions, Zethu Mthethwa.
TikTok Turns Into a Travel Search App
Traditionally, travelers searched for their destinations via search engines, brochures, travel agencies or tourism campaigns. These days, their research is getting visual and community-driven.
People who search for destinations via TikTok tend to look for real, authentic experience instead of polished tourism messages. According to the statistics provided at the masterclass, 50% of TikTok users watched videos related to travel over the last six months.
Thus, TikTok turns into a search platform that helps travelers make decisions.
Creator-Focused Approach Helps Build Trust
Another important change in destination marketing is the shift to creator-driven discovery. In comparison with advertisements, users prefer to follow content from creators, communities and regular TikTok accounts as they consider it more relatable.
Rather than posting highly-polished destination videos, your brand is encouraged to participate in community discussions and create TikTok-specific content. To be more precise, your videos are supposed to involve creators, follow current trends, focus on small-scale travels and show travelers what the experience is really like.
In other words, your brand’s presence on TikTok may be significantly increased by posting videos in which a creator shows a cozy café, a picturesque market, airport scene or an experience in the hotel room.
Travel Planning Stays Complicated for Many People
As social networks facilitate finding inspirations for travels, they don’t necessarily ease the travel planning itself. On the contrary, travelers need to find necessary information regarding accommodation, flights, visa, destination features and much more in many different places.
As mentioned during the masterclass, an average traveler spends 303 minutes on travel planning by checking 38 touchpoints.
Here comes the role of TikTok travel discovery. If used properly, it allows reducing time needed to plan your vacation. Video recommendations, creator reviews, destination guides and other kinds of content may be used as a basis for the travel planning process.
For instance, if you discovered a particular destination while watching a short video, you could read reviews and get recommendations in the comments section and save the video to use it later.
Destination Marketing Possibilities on TikTok
TikTok travel discovery provides lots of opportunities to tourism businesses that can create engaging content and promote it on this platform. You can address the needs of different kinds of travelers and produce content aimed at families, budget travelers, luxury visitors or staycation audience.
Some examples of emerging trends in travel content include supermarket tourism, airport content, staycations, and romanticizing the journey. All these trends mean that your brand may produce interesting travel content without focusing on destination promotion.
TikTok Travel Discovery Tips: How to Produce Great Content
Creating travel-related content that would successfully operate on the platform requires meeting the unique conditions. Here are the main characteristics of the successful TikTok content:
- Visually appealing and mobile-friendly
- Real-life experiences (instead of the polished destination images)
- Entertaining or informative
- Trendy
- Easy to understand even if it contains captions
- With a clearly visible call-to-action
You need to pay attention to sound design, proper pacing, appropriate captions and much more. In addition, you need to build strong connections with creators.
Your video is more likely to go viral if it isn’t promoted as advertisement.
Inspiration and Decision-Making in One Package
More and more travelers tend to use creators’ and communities’ content as a basis for the destination choice. Thus, your destination marketing efforts are shifting from brand-based campaigns to the creation of the authentic travel content.
This shift offers great opportunities for destination marketing in general. Brands that understand TikTok travel discovery principles may significantly increase their sales and boost popularity in a relatively short period of time.