Where are Travel Marketers Spending Their Paid Media Dollars in 2025?

With both U.S. and Canadian marketers navigating similar terrain—rising competition, digital fragmentation, and tighter consumer budgets—the time to reevaluate strategy is now.

After years of post-pandemic momentum, travel marketers across North America are facing a new reality in 2025. The boom seems to be over. The travel sector, once the fastest-growing vertical in media spend, is now adapting to slower growth, changing consumer expectations, and an evolving advertising mix.

The Plateau After the Surge

According to e-Marketer’s US Travel Industry Ad Spending Report, in the U.S., total travel media spend in 2024 was expected to hit $9.86 billion, a full recovery from its 2020 collapse. But while the numbers have bounced back, the growth story has changed. Digital ad spend in the travel sector is projected to rise only 7.9% this year—modest compared to the national average in 2024 of 12.6%​. Travel has dropped to the bottom of the list among the nine verticals tracked by eMarketer, making up just 2.6% of total U.S. digital ad spend – and this is not factoring in potential impacts of the recently announced tariffs, which is upending the industry.

Canadian travel marketers are experiencing parallel challenges. With increased competition from both domestic and international players, plus a significant shift in how consumers discover and book travel experiences, marketers must be more selective than ever with where and how they allocate their budgets.

Key Takeaway: Travel ranks last among nine major industries in digital ad spend share, contributing to just 2.6% of total U.S. digital advertising.

The Power of Search in Travel Advertising

Search continues to dominate digital advertising in the travel space, accounting for 61.1% of total digital ad spend in 2024—nearly 20 percentage points higher than the national average across all industries (41.2%)​. This reflects how travel decisions typically unfold: they are research-intensive, high-consideration purchases. Consumers often conduct dozens of searches before making a booking.

This reliance on search presents a key insight for marketers: optimizing for intent-rich moments is critical. Whether it’s paid search, SEO, or content partnerships, brands need to capture travelers at the planning stage, not just at the point of purchase.

Key Takeaway: Travel marketers allocate 61.1% of digital budgets to search – nearly 20 percentage points above the national average.

Display Ads Are Growing—But Still Trail Search

Despite search’s dominance, display advertising is growing faster in percentage terms. Display ad spend in the U.S. travel sector is set to grow 12.1% this year, outpacing search’s 7.7% gain. However, because the starting base for search is much larger, the format gap is actually widening in absolute dollar terms​.

Travel marketers should consider whether current display strategies are under-leveraged. Display ads—especially rich media and video—can play a stronger role in building brand awareness and showcasing the emotional pull of destinations.

Key Takeaway: Display ad spend is grew faster (12.1%) than search (7.7%) in 2024, but because search has a larger base, the gap in dollars is widening.

Social and Mobile: A Missed Opportunity?

One of the most striking outliers in travel’s media mix is its aversion to social advertising. While U.S. advertisers allocated 28.7% of their digital budgets to social in 2024, the travel industry will spend just 15.8%—the lowest among all sectors tracked​.

This has downstream effects. Since social is predominantly mobile, the travel industry also spends less than average on mobile ads. Only 58.5% of its digital spend goes to mobile, compared to 63–73% for other major industries​.

This cautious stance may be rooted in the nature of the product. Travel is a high-cost, high-consideration category, and users are less likely to convert from a casual scroll. But the digital ecosystem has evolved—social platforms now offer powerful tools for targeting intent, fostering community, and amplifying user-generated content.

Marketers may want to reconsider how social fits into the funnel. While direct response might be limited, platforms like Instagram and TikTok offer unmatched potential for storytelling and top-of-funnel influence.

Key Takeaway: The cautious approach to social may overlook its value in influencing discovery, especially during the inspiration phase of travel planning. Focusing budgets so heavily in search also forces marketers to compete in the highest cost channel, possibly elevating unit economics on acquisition and limiting more exponential vs. incremental growth.

Accommodations Dominate, But Growth Opportunities Remain

Within the travel vertical, accommodations dominate the digital spend. Hotels, resorts, vacation rentals, and hospitality groups were projected to drive 39.3% of digital ad dollars in 2024​. This subcategory benefits from direct booking paths, visual appeal, and stronger brand identity.

Meanwhile, airlines (10.8%) and cruise lines (6.9%) lag behind. Surprisingly, the largest share—43%—falls under the “other” category, which includes online travel agencies (OTAs), destination marketing organizations (DMOs), and travel agents.

For both Canadian and U.S. marketers, this segmentation reveals room for growth. Airlines and cruises have rich storytelling potential but are underrepresented in digital channels. DMOs, in particular, can benefit from sharpening their direct-to-consumer strategies, leveraging both paid search and display to drive awareness and bookings.

Key Takeaway: Accommodations account for nearly 40% of travel’s digital ad spend thanks to strong booking funnels and visual appeal. But underrepresented segments like airlines, cruises, and DMOs have untapped potential—especially in leveraging display and search to connect directly with travelers.

Implications for North American Travel Marketers

Travel marketers across North America face a shared imperative: maximize the impact of every ad dollar in a shifting landscape. Digital now commands the majority of travel ad spend on both sides of the border, with search dominating strategies thanks to its alignment with consumer research behaviour. In the U.S., search accounts for over 60% of digital travel spend, and similar patterns are emerging in Canada, where platforms like Google continue to anchor the planning journey.

However, both U.S. and Canadian travellers are increasingly influenced by personalized content and discovery-based channels—such as video and social media—despite travel’s historically lower investment in those formats. This opens an opportunity for brands to differentiate through content-rich storytelling and influencer engagement.

The U.S. continues to lead in media spend and strategic structure, offering valuable benchmarks for Canadian brands. But across the region, legacy channel allocations are giving way to data-informed media planning. Whether you’re a hotel chain, OTA, tourism board, or airline, aligning spend with real consumer behavior, not just past practices, is key to thriving in a fragmented, post-boom marketplace.

What Travel Marketers Should Do Now

Start:

• Doubling down on high-intent search opportunities.
• Testing rich media and video formats in display campaigns.
• Rethinking social as an awareness and engagement tool—not just a conversion channel that can only be invested in if it delivers direct-response.

Stop:

• Underestimating the role of mobile and social in shaping brand perceptions and driving growth short and long-term growth.
• Relying solely on traditional media for top-of-funnel impact (remember traditional media is now only ~30% of time spent)

Reconsider:

• If you are properly balancing brand and performance media.
• If you are investing enough to generate significant growth.
• If you are only investing in highly competitive arenas.
  

Closing Guidance

As growth stabilizes and competition intensifies, 2025 demands smarter—not just bigger—media investments from travel marketers. The data is clear: search is essential, but underused channels like display, social, and mobile present powerful opportunities for differentiation and engagement. Marketers should realign their strategies to reflect how—and where—travelers make decisions today.

The path forward isn’t about returning to pre-pandemic playbooks—it’s about adapting to a more fragmented, high-intent, and digitally complex customer journey. At Other.™, we can help you  reassess your media mix, rebalance your budget, and reconnect with travellers across the full funnel.

Sources: US Travel Industry Ad Spending 2024