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Expedia Travel Shops are stirring up buzz amongst eCommerce businesses in the travel and hospitality industry, and rightfully so. The new initiative brings influencer affiliate storefronts into its app. There, influencer affiliates are able to curate recommendations and earn commission.
The initiative is likely a response to reality. Planning a trip usually involves one place for ideas and inspiration: social media. Travel content creators have become the new travel agents, and Expedia sees an opportunity to partner with them.
“The way people shop has evolved, with almost 80% now finding travel inspiration through social media and influencers,” said Lauri Metrose, senior vice president at Expedia. “Recognizing the need to meet travelers where they are, we created Travel Shops, the first-of-its-kind shoppable storefront to simplify the travel booking process.”
What are Expedia Travel Shops
Personalized Creator Storefronts
Expedia’s Travel Shops give creators an all in one personalized storefront on Expedia.com and the app. The storefront page features the creator’s profile picture, biography, travel recommendations, and collections.
Collections
Affiliates in the program curate collections of hotel recommendations centered around certain themes like city or country. Shoppers will be able to swipe through those collections like a traditional social media site.
SimplyCyn Travels has hotel collections for countries like Mexico, Ireland, and Paris and then a separate collection for their top 10 favorite hotels ever.
Creators can add personal touches to their Travel Shops and hotel collections, like a caption explaining what they enjoyed about the hotel.
Perks of an Expedia Travel Shop
Expedia sites several reasons why affiliate creators should open a Travel Shop:
- Creators will earn commissions by sharing their travel recommendations. Each time a follower purchases through a creator’s Travel Shop or affiliate link, the creator earns a percentage of the sale. Expedia’s affiliate program landing page states that members will earn up to a 4% commission on qualified bookings.
- Offers a single, shareable link for all affiliate related needs – making it easy to share and monetize travel recommendations across creators’ bio, posts, and stories.
- Expedia promises to feature top Travel Shops on the homepage of its app and website. Just by partnering with Expedia, creators will be sharing their content with millions of users on the largest travel platform globally.
- The program is currently in an exclusive, invite-only phase. Early adopters have a chance to stand out before the functionality is opened up to broader audiences.
Future Plans for Expedia’s Travel Shops
Membership
The Travel Shops program is currently in beta in the US, UK, and Canada. In 2025, Expedia plans to open Travel Shops to all, allowing anyone to create, curate, and monetize their on storefront.
Functionality
Expedia also revealed its roadmap for ‘Travel Shops’.
In the future, creators will be able to upload their own content. The goal is to make Travel Shops more akin to a traditional social commerce experience.
At the moment, creators can only curate from Expedia’s inventory of 3M+ hotel properties. This will eventually include +220K activities and +500 airlines as well.
The Future of the Affiliate Storefront Model
Expedia is not the first major enterprise to experiment with the “affiliate storefront” model for social creators. Giants like Amazon, Walmart, and Target run similar programs, and have been for years.
However, these major enterprises, including Expedia, have invested millions of dollars in development dollars building this functionality from scratch. This isn’t realistic for the average enterprise brand.
But, software solutions like LoudCrowd makes creating an identical or similar model possible.
Implementing Affiliate Storefronts with LoudCrowd
LoudCrowd is a social commerce technology solution that enables brands to generate and deploy 100s or 1000s of creator storefronts automatically. It is the only technology solution that supports on-domain storefronts for any eCommerce setup – even the most custom.
A brand’s creators are able to personalize their storefront on their own – just like an Expedia Travel Shop:
- The storefront is connected to the Instagram and TikTok API, meaning profile pictures and UGC are automatically populated onto the page
- Creators can change their profile image or biography
- Creators are able to curate collections through a product picker or by using the creator widget to shop your site
- Creators can tag products on their storefront UGC, and then share out that link to their socials
- Creators have access to a hub of detailed analytics, which will make them a much better affiliate for your brand
LoudCrowd integrates across a brand’s existing tech stacks, including traditional affiliate marketing softwares like impact.com, AWIN, and Partnerize.
Getting Started with LoudCrowd.
Getting started with LoudCrowd is easy. The first step is booking a call to discuss your eCommerce, influencer, and affiliate setups and technology stacks.
