Remember all those niche travel bloggers and cool social media creators who helped your hotel pop up in feeds worldwide? Booking.com just slammed the door in their faces. And basically in yours too… But, don’t worry WIWT got you covered as we tell you exactly what this means for your hotel, in this article from our perspective as a Travel Affiliate Program.

Article Summary

• Booking.com terminated its affiliate program (read more on What is Affiliate Marketing for Hotels?) for small partners, with a 30-day warning.
• Thousands of niche influencers lost their revenue streams overnight.
• These influencers were your hotel’s secret sauce for visibility in authentic, curated travel content.
• There’s a new wave coming – and it’s designed to fix EXACTLY what Booking just broke.

What Just Happened?

Booking.com, out of nowhere, pulled the plug on thousands of small affiliate partnerships. Boom. Done. As of the end of June, those influencers and travel bloggers who hyped your hotel? Ghosted. No more links. No more payouts. No more exposure.

Why? Because they’re moving to big, impersonal other travel affiliate programs. Less fraud, they say. More efficiency. Sure. But what happens to your boutique hotel when the quirky writer in Berlin or the Gen Z TikToker in Bali stops talking about you?

This Isn’t About Booking.com. It’s About WHO They Cut Off.

Hotels don’t care about affiliate software. You care about who’s talking about your property.

And here’s the kicker: it wasn’t giant publishers or travel search engines who made your place feel like a hidden gem. It was that blogger who stayed for a night, loved your breakfast, and posted a 2-minute story that brought 25 bookings. It was niche influencers, small and mighty.

Now they’re locked out.

So, what now?

Enter the New Era of Travel Affiliation

The old-school travel affiliate model? Clunky. Corporate. Boring.

What hotels actually need is real humans talking about real experiences and linking back to bookable rooms. We’re not saying affiliate marketing is dead – it’s evolving. And the smart hotel owners are watching carefully.

What’s next in hotel social media marketing? Influencers with Travel Shops.
Not just slapping affiliate links on their blogs – but full-blown curated collections of where they’ve been, stayed, and loved. Your hotel, included.

And guess what? These micro-creators are hungry for a new hotel affiliate marketing platform that lets them keep doing what they do best – promoting amazing places like yours.

🧠 Bottom Line

• Booking.com just nuked thousands of mini marketing machines that used to talk about your hotel.
• This isn’t the end of affiliate marketing – it’s the start of something better.
• Niche creators still matter – and they’re looking for a new home.
• Hotels that stay visible in this shift by joining a travel affiliate platform? Will win big.

About WIWT – WISH I WAS THERE

WIWT – WISH I WAS THERE offers a completely different solution for hotels to sell rooms to the followers of inluencers. Our social selling platform works on an affiliate marketing model, where hotels pay commission for each room booked, just like with an OTA. And influencers can make a commission when their fans book a room at a hotel. We have simplified the influencer marketing landscape, taking out the high touch and labor intensive element.

Hotels can simply connect their channel manager, and WIWT takes care of selling rooms.

WIWT – WISH I WAS THERE
WIWT