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Welcome to December's Travel Creator Newsletter, your moment of calm between the storm of Black Friday and the frenzy of Travel Tuesday.

This edition includes new ways to get paid for hotel content, savings on creator events in 2025, and a chance to bag yourself $100 from Travel Massive.

As always, feel free to hit reply—I’d love to hear your thoughts! Happy reading, Kieren (more about me at the end).

GENERAL NEWS

📣 Expedia Will Pay You For Hotel Content - Expedia's 'Travel Videos' feature is live, allowing creators to upload 10-30 second portrait clips of properties and earn $150 USD for each one approved. Find out more here.

📣 Awards Season Continued Through November - The 2024 travel awards season continued this month. Congrats to all the nominees and winners, including @travel.eat.shoot.productions and @budgettraveller, @anastazjastanowska, and @traveltramp_uk (twice!).

View winners of the Traverse Creator Awards here.

View winners of the BGTW Awards on their Threads feed.

📣 2040 Travel Predictions - Using their big datasets, Google shared predictions of what the most visited countries will be in 2040 (France will lose its title) and where those travellers will come from. Read it here.

📢 Looking for paid writing gigs or press trips? My friend Joyce (from DIYwithJoy) lists loads on her free public Travel Plug Dashboard, updated bi-weekly - save it to your favourites. She also shares tips and resources for creators via her newsletter.

BLOGGING & AFFILIATE NEWS

🌐 Google Algorithm Update Rolls Out - Google launched the Nov 2024 core algorithm update on 11/11, stating a 2-week roll-out period. But 19 days later, it's still ongoing. Some creators are reporting small recoveries from previous updates, but it's too early to make final calls. Latest info here.

🌐 HARO Closes Down - Cision announced the closure of their Help A Reporter Out (HARO) service, used by bloggers to get quoted in high-authority publications. It closes on 9/12, more info here.

If you're looking for an alternative to HARO, Sacha from JournoFinder has released a free tool to easily monitor social media for #journorequest alerts.

🌐 Stay22 Expand Their Partnership With Booking.com - Users of Stay22 will now have the opportunity to earn commissions on flights, car rentals, and attractions too. More info here.

SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS

🔔 Instagram Moving Stories Highlights - Your Instagram profile could be about to change as Instagram tests moving stories highlights to a dedicated tab. Full info here.

🔔 TikTok To Allow Expedia Affiliate Links - TikTok announced they're testing a new feature so that creators can add affiliate links within posts to select platforms including Expedia and Amazon. Find out more and see the full list of retailers here.

🔔 How TikTok is Changing Travel - National Geographic highlighted the growing influence of TikTok on the travel industry, showcasing its impact on tourism trends for better or worse. Full article here.

🔔 YouTube Updates the Creator Studio App - The new look content tab makes it easier to see the performance of long-form and short-form videos. Plus, an improved comments tab will allow better management of audience interactions. Full info here.

TIPS & TRICKS

💡 Email Newsletter Ideas for December - Mailerlite compiled 56 content ideas for your email newsletter in December.

💡 Travel Blog Income Report: $36,557 - Niche Site Lady breaks down the income and expenses of her travel blog that resulted in $36,557 of earnings in October.

💡 Skyrocket Your YouTube Videos With Connected TVs - With over a billion hours of YouTube being watched on connected TVs, their creator liaison team shared 5 tips to optimise your content to get shown more on the big screen.

💡 How To Use Google Search Console - GSC is an essential (free) tool for any blogger. Yoast shared a beginner's guide on setting it up and using its most helpful features.

💡 Master Trending Topics for Massive Traffic - In this video, travel blogger and SEO expert Nina Clapperton explains how to create viral articles for massive traffic spikes. If you don't have time for the full video, I recommend at least watching from 7:28 to 13:18.

💰 Win $100 - Stay22 & Travel Massive just launched their global travel creator survey. It takes 5 mins to complete and you can win $100 or a Travel Massive Premium membership. Find the survey here.

TRENDING TOPICS

🔥 New YouTube introduction trend [Thread by Salma Jafri]

🔥 Before you start a blog consider these 5 things [Reddit Post by VirtuallyManda]

🔥 Average traffic for AI-generated articles vs human-written [X thread by Neil Patel]

🔥 Google just crushed major publishers [YT video by Authority Hackers]

UPCOMING EVENTS

📅 22nd-23rd Jan 25 - IMM North America, New York City (media applications here)

📅 22nd-26th Jan 25 - Fitur Interntaional Tourism Fair, Madrid (early bird tickets here)

📅 27th Jan 25 - Blogger Breakthrough Summit [free virtual event]

📅 10th Feb 25 - Meet the Media, Dublin (media applications via email)

📅 13th Feb 25 - IMM Australia, Sydney (media applications here)

📅 17th - 18th Feb 25 - IMM UK, London (media applications opening soon)

*BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL*

Black Friday might have gone, but many deals are still live for a few more days. Here are some of my favourites. No catch, no affiliate links (call me crazy) —I'm sharing because I think you’ll love them too.

👉 TBEX Events - Use code BF30% to get 30% off new registrations for any TBEX event in 2025. See event dates, prices, and info here.

👉 Women in Travel Summit (WITS) - Use code WITS75 to get $75 off WITS 2025 in Downtown NYC. Registration info and prices here.

👉 Nomadic Matt's Superstar Blogging - The original travel blogging course recently got an update and is on sale for just $49 until Monday. It's a no-brainer! More info here.

👉 Keysearch - The best value SEO tool for keyword research is even cheaper right now. Sign-up today with code blackfriday and get 35% off every single month until you cancel. More info here.

MONTHLY POLL

Do you use stock photos/videos on your travel blog?

WHO'S BEHIND THIS NEWSLETTER? Hi, I'm Kieren, I've been travel blogging for 6+ years (full-time since 2021). I love nerding out about all things blogging, SEO, social media, and AI. I started this newsletter to connect with fellow content creators - whether you're just starting out or a seasoned pro. Hit reply to chat!