A gifted stay with the wrong creator does nothing for a hotel, restaurant or travel brand beyond a few likes. The right creator, telling the right story to an audience whose interests genuinely align with yours, is a different thing entirely, and the gap between the two comes down to who is doing the matching.
Kitten & Shark is a boutique, senior-led influencer marketing agency based in London, working with hotels, restaurants, travel, wellness, and lifestyle brands across the UK and Europe. You work directly with our senior PR consultants from the first conversation onwards, so the people who choose and brief your creators are the people who know your story and your standards, with no handover to a junior team once the contract is signed.
This page covers what an influencer marketing agency actually does, how it differs from traditional PR, how influencer stays and press trips work, what it costs, and how we measure whether a campaign is working.
An influencer marketing agency manages the whole relationship between your brand and the creators who can reach your audience. The work usually brings together the following:
Matching audience, values and content quality to your brand rather than follower count alone.
So a creator experiences your hotel, restaurant or destination first-hand.
Agreeing the story, the deliverables and the timing.
So everything is professional and compliant.
Making the most of what creators produce across your own channels too.
Tracking reach, engagement and the bookings or sales that follow.
Influencer marketing is the practice of partnering with content creators to reach their audience through their own channels. Traditional PR, and media relations in particular, earn coverage in the press from journalists and editors.
The two overlap, especially on a launch or a press-and-influencer trip, but they work differently. PR trades on the credibility of a masthead, while influencer marketing trades on the trust between a creator and their followers.
For hospitality and travel brands, the strongest results usually come from using both together: a press trip that also hosts a few well-chosen creators earns coverage and social proof at the same time.
| Service | What it supports |
|---|---|
| Creator sourcing and vetting | The right match on audience, values and content quality |
| Influencer stays and hosted visits | First-hand experience that creators genuinely want to share |
| Campaign strategy and briefing | A clear story, deliverables and timing tied to your goals |
| Contracts, rights and disclosure | Professional, compliant partnerships |
| Content and amplification | Creator content working across your own channels too |
| Measurement and reporting | Reach, engagement and the bookings or sales that follow |
Influencer stays and press trips are where influencer marketing earns its keep in hospitality and travel, and they sit right alongside our hotel PR work, because a hotel or destination is hard to convey in a single post.
A well-run influencer stay hosts a small number of carefully chosen creators so they can experience the place properly and share it with the audience that trusts them. A combined press and influencer trip goes further, bringing journalists and creators together to launch a new property, route or destination, which is where it overlaps with our luxury travel PR, earning editorial coverage and social content from one moment.
The value is in the match and the brief: the right creators, a genuine reason to visit and clear goals, rather than a stream of gifted stays that lead nowhere.
Bigger is not always better. The right creator tier depends on your goal, your budget and how much trust matters versus reach. For premium hospitality and wellness brands, smaller, credible creators often outperform big names, because their audiences are more engaged and their recommendations feel more personal.
| Creator tier | What it is | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Nano and micro (roughly 1k to 100k) | Highly engaged, trusted, niche audiences | Credibility, local reach and considered campaigns |
| Mid-tier (roughly 100k to 500k) | A balance of reach and engagement | Wider awareness while keeping relevance |
| Macro and above (500k+) | Broad reach and profile | Scale and big launches, at a higher cost |
Influencer marketing earns its keep when you have a real story and want to reach the right audience through people they trust. A few situations we see often:
Arranging the right influencer stays to reach travellers planning their next weekend away or holiday.
Inviting food and lifestyle creators for a considered campaign before and after opening, often running alongside its restaurant PR.
Running a combined press and influencer trip to launch a new destination or property.
Working with credible micro-influencers rather than chasing follower counts.
Influencer marketing has grown from a nice-to-have into a core channel.
Statista estimates the global influencer marketing market reached a record $33 billion in 2025.
That scale brings noise, which is exactly why matching and credibility matter more than ever. Travellers and diners increasingly plan around what they see from creators they trust, so the brands that choose the right partners, and treat them as a considered campaign rather than a giveaway, are the ones most likely to turn that attention into bookings.
For consumer and lifestyle brands, influencer work plays the same role alongside our lifestyle PR work.
We agree what success looks like before a campaign starts, then track it. That can include reach and impressions, engagement quality rather than just likes, saves and shares, referral traffic and booking or discount codes, follower growth, and the coverage or content you can reuse afterwards.
For hospitality clients, the measure that matters most is usually enquiries and bookings, so we tie reporting back to that wherever we can.
Influencer marketing is usually run as a monthly retainer or a project fee for a specific campaign or trip. Costs depend on the creators involved, whether it is a gifted stay or a paid partnership, and how much content and amplification you need.
Boutique, senior-led consultancies typically start from a few thousand pounds a month, with paid creator fees on top where they apply. Because our model is senior-only, you are paying for experienced people choosing and managing the right partners, not a large structure around them. A short conversation about your goals is the best starting point.
Kitten & Shark is a boutique PR consultancy where our senior consultants work directly on your account. Founder Clemmie Mason-Pearson has more than seventeen years in lifestyle, hospitality, and travel PR, with long-standing relationships among the editors, journalists, and creators who shape these sectors. Because the team is small, everyone knows every account, so the people choosing your creators understand your brand and your standards.
We think of ourselves as an extension of your team, with a wider network across event handling, celebrity booking, hotel sales, social media, digital marketing and SEO, international media, and crisis management on call when a campaign needs it. We work with boutique and independent hotels, small hotel groups, restaurants, travel, wellness, and lifestyle brands. Our focus remains firmly on these hospitality and lifestyle categories, which keeps our creator relationships concentrated where they count for you.
An influencer marketing agency helps a brand find, brief and manage the right creators to reach an audience that trusts them. That includes sourcing and vetting creators, arranging influencer stays and campaigns, handling contracts and disclosure, and measuring results. For hospitality and travel brands, the aim is bookings and genuine reach, not just follower counts.
Influencer marketing is usually a monthly retainer or a project fee, with paid creator fees on top where they apply. Costs depend on the creators, whether stays are gifted or paid, and how much content you need. Boutique consultancies typically start from a few thousand pounds a month. We quote on what you actually need rather than a fixed package.
An influencer stay hosts a small number of carefully chosen creators so they experience your hotel or destination and share it with their audience. A combined press and influencer trip brings journalists and creators together to launch a property or destination, earning coverage and social content at once. The value is in the right match, a genuine reason to visit and clear goals.
Traditional PR earns coverage in the press through journalists and editors. Influencer marketing partners with creators to reach their audience through their own channels. PR trades on the credibility of a title, influencer marketing on the trust between a creator and their followers. For hospitality brands, using both together, especially on a launch, tends to work best.
Often, yes, for premium hospitality and wellness brands. Micro-influencers tend to have smaller but highly engaged, trusting audiences, so their recommendations feel personal and credible. Larger influencers offer broad reach and profile at a higher cost. The right tier depends on whether your goal is trust and relevance or scale.
We agree goals up front, then track reach and impressions, engagement quality, saves and shares, referral traffic, booking or discount codes, follower growth and reusable content. For hospitality clients, we tie reporting back to enquiries and bookings wherever possible, so the work is measured on outcomes, not vanity metrics.
A travel influencer marketing agency specialises in creators who cover travel, hotels, and destinations, and in the formats that suit them, such as influencer stays and press and influencer trips. Because the relationships and the storytelling are specific to travel, a specialist tends to match brands with creators whose audiences align with the travellers you want to reach.
Our focus is creators in hospitality, travel, food and drink, wellness and lifestyle. Keeping that focus means the creators we work with reach the audiences that matter for hotels, restaurants and lifestyle brands.