How Travel Brands Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust Creators

Photo Credit: From left to right: Virgin Voyages senior director of global operations, experience, and belonging Alex Zeitz; IHG senior vice president of global brands Connor Smith; content creator Oneika Raymond, and Skift Airlines Editor Gordon Smith at the Skift Creator Summit in New York City on September 22, 2026. Skift Connor Smith spent over a decade building and protecting the identity of more than 7,000 hotels across IHG’s 21 brands. Now he’s handing pieces of that branding to strangers armed with iPhones and ring lights. “What I'm realizing is as the role of the creator becomes increasingly important for our marketing, in order to reach all of the different audiences that we need to reach, and in order to build the trust that we need to build … I really had to let go,” said Smith, who is IHG’s senior vice president of global brands, at the Skift Creator Summit in New York City on Tuesday. Smith’s comments echo a larger sentiment across the travel industry: placing more trust in creators to gain more credibility wi