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With the holidays bearing down upon us, you’ve likely either already booked your travel plans or are soon going to be in desperate need of a getaway. Here at HBBIP Headquarters, I’m hunkering down for the remainder of the year, but I’ve got some exciting travel coming up in 2026. As I do research for those trips, or hear about travel plans from friends and coworkers, I’m struck once again by how central creators have become to the modern travel industry.
Looking for local hotspots? Savings hacks? Tips and tricks for navigating a foreign culture? Chances are, you’re using creators to learn more.
While the travel industry already boasts a booming creator ecosystem, I don’t talk about the space too frequently in this newsletter. Maybe it’s just me yearning to escape the cold and/or familial obligations, but I figured that now is the perfect time to do so.
Most of the time, if you’re trying to get as far away as people usually want to get during the holidays, you’ll have to fly. I’ve previously covered several airlines that leverage creator marketing to soar to new heights, but there’s at least one more that deserves a closer look…
While it might not be as well-known amongst those of my readers who just celebrated Thanksgiving, if you’re trying to do a Eurotrip minus all the Euros, you’ve probably heard of easyJet.
Founded in 1995 and based out of London’s iconic Luton Airport (you don’t see any chart-topping singles named after Stansted, now do you?), easyJet has flown its way to becoming one of Europe’s largest low-cost airlines, encouraging millions of Britons to ‘Get Out There.’
Take a look at that link, by the way—it’s more than just some words about a slogan. In fact, it does a great job of explaining easyJet’s status as a disruptor and innovator not just in the world of travel, but in the world of travel advertising. Simply put, easyJet has gone creator-first.
This past January, for its ‘Big Orange Sale’ campaign, which utilized the brand’s longrunning ‘Get Out There’ slogan, easyJet built an entire promotional campaign around content from various European creators. Via a series of immersive 20-second clips, easyJet let creators craft their own experiential travel narratives, turning what could have been a staid, static campaign into something that, to quote that Marketing Communication News article, “captur[ed] the liberating joy of travel in a way that’s authentic, unfiltered, and unlike how travel brands normally advertise.”
A huge tip of the cap (dip of the wings?) to easyJet for understanding what so many brands have only just begun to grasp: when you let creators tell your story, that story will spread more widely and resonate more deeply.
We’ve gone a long time without a graph. Maybe we should take a look at just how high easyJet has managed to fly on social?
easyJet Creator Count, 2020 - 2025
To start, I checked out easyJet’s annualized global creator count. After dipping in 2021—not a big year for travel—easyJet has rebounded ever since, attracting mentions from a steadily increasing number of creators. With a push during the holiday season in November and December, 2025 is primed to keep the growth rolling and surpass its 2024 total.
easyJet Post Count, 2020 - 2025
It’s a similar story with similar numbers for the brand’s post count, which has grown over 3x since that 2021 decline.
easyJet EMV, 2020 - 2025
One metric where easyJet has already bested its 2024 total is Earned Media Value (EMV), where the brand has orchestrated a remarkable 9x turnaround from 2021. The brand’s improvement in 2025 speaks to the runaway (runway?) virality of its creator-centric campaigns, which have sparked widespread buzz for easyJet around both social and traditional media.
easyJet Engagements, 2020 - 2025
Engagements, on the other hand, tells a more nuanced story. The brand has essentially plateaued for the last three years, though two more months will likely vault 2025 to the top of the pack. Still, it’s not the exponential growth we’ve seen for easyJet in other metrics.
easyJet Impressions, 2020 - 2025
It’s a similar story for impressions. Though there’s more of a dip in 2024, this is once again a case where easyJet is well-positioned to break its own records this year, underscoring the brand’s continual growth.
While we’re looking at global numbers here—after all, easyJet services destinations in 45 countries and territories—I also looked into the brand’s U.K. and Europe figures, and found that the data follows fairly similar patterns across every market. I even investigated easyJet’s U.S. figures, and found that while the brand boasts smaller numbers stateside, those numbers are rising at a similar rate.
Another thing that stood out to me was how balanced easyJet’s channel figures proved to be. Unlike other industries, when I generally know where engagements and impressions are coming from—skincare is TikTok, tech or streaming are YouTube, fashion is Instagram—I didn’t really have a baseline for travel. I have to do more research to form any definitive conclusion, but going just off of easyJet, the results are…inconclusive:
easyJet Share of Impressions, November 2024 - October 2025
Looking at the brand’s impressions, we see a pretty even split between TikTok and Instagram, with sizable contributions from YouTube and Facebook. After all, whether you’re a Gen Z backpacker looking for cheap airfare on TikTok or a pensioner looking for snowbird inspiration on Facebook, travel is for everybody.
easyJet Share of Engagements, November 2024 - October 2025
When it comes to engagements, the margins tighten a little bit, but we still see a pretty even split between TikTok and Instagram. It’s not as easy as saying that TikTok drives impressions while Instagram fuels engagements, as we often see for beauty brands. This is a whole new dynamic, though it’s clearly indicative of a balanced strategy on easyJet’s part.
Apart from signature campaigns like the ‘Get Out There’ initiative, creators faithfully promoted easyJet throughout the year, underscoring their central role in easyJet’s marketing mix. Whether it was micro-creator and TikToker Lois Vent counting down the days to her easyJet trip, or Scottish travel expert and powerhouse creator Ian G. Black sharing his recs on Instagram, easyJet brought the world to social media users before it brought those social media users to the world.
I’m making a big bet on travel to emerge as one of the creator economy’s key verticals in 2026, and brands that get it—brands like easyJet—will be leading the charge. I for one will be monitoring easyJet’s continued growth, which will hopefully include North American expansion sometime soon. Seriously: if you’re listening, easyJet, anytime you want to ‘Get Out There’ to a New York City-adjacent airport, that would be alright by me.
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