The Creatives Room

Travel Advertising

Travel advertising is selling the most potent emotion in the consumer world: the possibility of transformation through movement. The best campaigns don't show hotels and beach resorts - they show moments of genuine discovery, connection, or freedom that travel enables. Tourism Australia's 'Where the Bloody Hell Are You' was simultaneously celebrated and banned in multiple countries. Visit Iceland's 'Iceland Academy' turned a nation into a comedy. Ryanair and EasyJet have built brands on the opposite of aspiration - and been commercially successful with it. The category is more diverse than it appears.

The campaigns in this collection

  1. Americans in Paris - Number 17 · 2010

    Anthology cover that renders the transatlantic literary pilgrimage literally as airmail: the flight-path arc and envelope framing turn Americans' long romance with Paris into a piece of correspondence in transit.

  2. Spring, Heat, Rains - University Of Chicago Press · Isaac Tobin · 2010

    Cover for David Shulman's Spring, Heat, Rains. The riot of bright fabric captures the sensory intensity of the diary - colour, heat and texture of a year spent immersed in the south of India.

  3. Blood?s a Rover - Knopf · Chip Kidd™ · 2009

    Cover for James Ellroy's Blood's a Rover. The sickly-green nocturnal cityscape drips with the corruption and menace of Ellroy's late-60s American underworld - crime lit by neon.

  4. The Colossus of Maroussi - New Directions · Steve Attardo · 2010

    Cover for Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi. The labyrinth evokes Greece itself - Crete's myths and the winding journey of Miller's wandering, transformative travelogue.

  5. Wander More - TripAdvisor

    TripAdvisor pushes against its own reputation for the safe recommendation and tells travellers to get off the route. Alongside the films, users could put their account into WanderMode, which scrambles their GPS location and builds itineraries with no fixed destination, so the product delivers the ai

  6. Stories - Mini · Jung von Matt · 2016

    MINI needed to pivot away from spec-driven automotive advertising to reposition the brand within modern urban culture. The campaign rests on the idea that a car is defined by the personal journeys and creative lives of its drivers rather than its technical features. Jung von Matt replaced traditiona

  7. The Most Beautiful Journey - Costa Cruises · Leo Burnett Italy · 2021

    Costa Cruises sought to reposition cruise travel following industry-wide post-pandemic disruption and growing skepticism toward sea tourism. The strategy turned the fundamental nature of cruising into its greatest asset with the core thesis: "The most beautiful journey on earth is on sea." By framin

  8. Welcome To The Conversation - Delta · 2020

    "Welcome to the Conversation" for Delta: a traveller striding through the airport, planes beyond, casts the airline as the connector that brings people and journeys together.

  9. Hawaiian Double Burger - KFC

    KFC "Hawaiian Double Burger". A product spot launching KFC's Hawaiian Double burger.

  10. That Moment - GetYourGuide · 2024

    GetYourGuide "That Moment". GetYourGuide frames travel experiences around the unforgettable moments they create.

  11. You Do Know Where - McDonald's · 2017

    McDonald's "You Do Know Where". A spot playing on the instinct of always knowing where to go for the food you crave.

  12. Me Leva - Vivo · 2015

    Vivo "Me Leva". A phone spot framing the device as coming along on life's journeys.

  13. Lisbon - Airbnb

    An Airbnb film set in Lisbon: a couple leaning from a window over the tiled streets sells the "live like a local" promise - belonging in a place rather than just visiting it.

  14. Poetry and Paint - Destination Canada · Ogilvy · 2018

    "Poetry and Paint" for Destination Canada, presented with The New Yorker: an artful branded travel film using the magazine's prestige to sell Canada's culture and landscapes.

  15. Experience More - T-Mobile · BBDO Zagreb · 2017

    T-Mobile "Experience More". T-Mobile frames doing and experiencing more with its network.

  16. Taste That Takes You - Nespresso · McCann Paris · 2022

    Nespresso frames its coffee as a sensory passport - a single cup transports you to the origin and moment the taste evokes. It leans on the brand's premium, aspirational world of craft and escape, turning an everyday ritual into a small luxury journey and reinforcing Nespresso as the sophisticated, e

  17. Poetry and Paint - Destination Canada · Ogilvy · 2018

    "Poetry and Paint" for Destination Canada, presented with The New Yorker: an artful branded travel film using the magazine's prestige to sell Canada's culture and landscapes.

  18. Albert Heijn - Christmas (2020) - Albert Heijn · TBWA · 2020

    Albert Heijn's 2020 Christmas film: the season seen through a child's wonderstruck eyes, the Dutch supermarket wrapping itself in warmth, family and festive togetherness.

  19. Where Everything Started - Turkish Airlines · Apparkat · 2025

    Brand film tied to Turkish Airlines becoming main sponsor of the Taş Tepeler archaeological project (2024-2029), the Southeastern Anatolian region including Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe where settled life, agriculture and long-distance trade first emerged some 12,000 years ago. The idea positions the

  20. Let's Go - Hertz · 2024

    Hickap "Inside Out". A spot framing the brand around authenticity and turning things inside out.

  21. Some Gifts You Just Can’t Buy - Toys R Us · 2019

    Moody night interior: a young boy sleeps in a striped red-green-and-white knit jumper, tucked against white bedding, his head near an ornate carved wooden bedstead. In the foreground a bedside table holds round wire-rimmed glasses; behind, a gauzy curtain glows with soft out-of-focus warm bokeh ligh

  22. New Horizons - Four Seasons · 2024

    Four Seasons "New Horizons". Four Seasons frames luxury travel as the opening of new horizons and experiences.

  23. Travel Changed Me - Away · 2021

    American Haiku built the campaign on the argument that travel is a catalyst rather than an escape, and that we never recall a trip accurately - it returns as dreamlike impressions that end up part of who we are. So the film refuses the destination reel. A woman moves through Bangkok by long-tail boa

  24. Website Video Front - Sheraton · 2017

    Sheraton "Website Video Front". A hotel-brand hero video for the website, framing the guest experience.

Why this collection is worth studying

Travel advertising is unusually difficult to evaluate because the gap between what advertising promises and what travel delivers is almost always significant. The most honest and effective campaigns in this collection have found ways to promise something true - a feeling, not a destination - and then shown how their particular product is the most efficient way to reach it.

See also

Best Travel Ads & Tourism Campaigns - The Creatives Room