When Clicks Aren’t Enough: How Online Travel Agencies Can Build Real Connection

Travel is built on emotion. It’s about curiosity, connection, and discovery. For online travel agencies and operators (OTAs), turning that emotion into something tangible has always been difficult. 

Unlike airlines or hotels, OTAs live entirely online. Their platforms make travel possible, but the experience itself happens elsewhere. This creates a challenge for marketers: how do you make something that exists solely on a screen feel human and memorable? 

Concurrently, the media landscape is more fragmented than ever. Reaching the right audiences, cutting through the noise, and creating consistent brand experiences are daily challenges for OTA marketers.   

In a category defined by convenience, the hardest thing to sell is confidence.

And that’s exactly where sponsorship comes in. By appearing in trusted, passion-led environments, OTAs can build genuine credibility with the right audiences in a way that digital ads alone rarely can. 

After years of recovery and reinvention, brands like Booking.com, Expedia, Skyscanner, and Airbnb are starting to answer that question. They’re realising that sponsorship isn’t just another marketing channel. Instead, it’s a platform, enabling them to bring emotion and credibility to their brands. 

Building Trust in a Click-Driven World 

For years, OTAs were mostly absent from sponsorship. Airlines and tourism boards dominated sport and culture partnerships, while OTAs have relied on performance marketing to do the heavy lifting. However, as competition intensified and trust became the deciding factor in conversion, that equation started to shift. 

Booking.com’s partnership with the UEFA Women’s Champions League proved that digital-first brands can connect emotionally through shared passions. Expedia’s deal with Liverpool FC has become a long-term global platform for storytelling. Skyscanner’s partnership with Scottish Rugby last year signalled a growing appetite among OTAs to build brand depth and community. 

Unlike airlines or hotels, OTAs and travel operators don’t own a physical experience. Sponsorship provides that bridge, putting them inside real moments, with real communities, in a way traditional ads never can. 

Yet, despite clear momentum, OTAs still occupy a small share of the market. Based on our analysis, they represent just over 3% of football sponsorships in the UK, and less than 1% in most other sports, including tennis and golf. In other words, the market is wide open, signalling that the brands who move first can own the conversation before the market gets crowded. 

The Data Behind the Decisions 

At The Value Xchange, every strategy starts with data and insight. We use Luscid, a leading sponsorship intelligence platform, to analyse audience alignment, brand values, and activation potential. Using Luscid, we explored where OTAs should focus next, analysing how different properties align with a typical UK OTA’s audience, marketing priorities, and growth goals. Here’s what we found: 

• When awareness and engagement were of equal importance, football led by a wide margin, followed by Formula 1, cycling, and live events like festivals and concerts. Football’s strength is obvious - unmatched reach, mass participation, and the ability to deliver emotional engagement at scale. But that also means high competition between partners and potentially high international wastage. 

• Looking deeper, cycling and athletics stood out for a different reason. Both scored highly on brand fit and participation, yet few OTA brands currently operate in those spaces (under 2% category share). These sports have strong links to travel, outdoor exploration, and wellbeing, all natural extensions of OTA brand values. For a digital-first brand that wants connection, they offer real cut-through, particularly given their high participation but low sponsorship saturation. 

• When prioritising awareness, football remained top, but music and live events climbed sharply. These are powerful arenas for storytelling. OTAs thrive when they can link their brand to experiences, not just destinations, and music offers that emotional context. 

• Finally, when focused on engagement rather than reach, the picture shifted again. Formula 1 and Formula E rose to the top. Both reflect innovation, technology, and global mobility, key themes for OTAs trying to position themselves as smart, seamless, and connected. 

In summary, football still delivers unmatched visibility, but it’s crowded. Cycling, athletics, and live events offer white-space opportunities  with cultural and emotional depth, and strong participation levels that make them relevant to how consumers actually spend their time. Formula 1 and Formula E, meanwhile, align well with the forward-looking and digital-first DNA of modern OTAs. 

The most effective strategy won’t be to follow the crowd into football, but to use data to find underused properties that match brand values and inspire travel behaviour. That’s how sponsorship becomes not just visible, but valuable. 

Why the Smartest Online Travel Brands Are Stepping into Sponsorship 

- Expedia x Liverpool FC 

Expedia’s partnership with Liverpool has become a model of how digital brands can use sponsorship to create relevance and utility. Beyond the sleeve logo, the brand built a suite of fan travel experiences, from bespoke away-day content to integrated booking tools within Liverpool’s digital platforms. 

Rather than pushing transactions, Expedia focused on being helpful. It used its product to enhance the fan journey, positioning the brand as part of the experience rather than outside it. This proves there’s real value in making sponsorship functional, not just symbolic. 

This approach continues to pay dividends. With the initial partnership launching in October 2020, the agreement was extended in March 2023 for an additional four years. 

- Airbnb x The International Olympic Committee (IOC)

Airbnb’s global partnership with the IOC is another strong example in using sponsorship to build trust. As opposed to simply focusing on exposure, Airbnb has positioned itself as an official supporter of the Olympic Movement, focusing on values like community, accessibility, and sustainability.

The partnership provides accommodation for athletes and fans, reducing environmental footprint and supporting athlete income through the Airbnb Olympian and Paralympian Experiences programme. By aligning with one of the world’s most trusted and unifying platforms, Airbnb has reinforced its reputation as a reliable and socially conscious brand.

These examples show how OTAs can turn data and platforms into emotion and participation. They demonstrate that sponsorship can do more than raise awareness. It can humanise a brand that lives entirely online and strengthen trust in a market where reliability matters as much as price.

The TVX Perspective 

For OTAs, marketing has long been dominated by digital performance channels - paid search, social, and affiliates. These channels are effective, measurable, and scalable, but they only take a brand so far. They drive clicks, not connection. 

Meanwhile, sponsorship has the power to do both. It combines the accountability of digital marketing with the emotional reach of culture and sport. It can be tracked, optimised, and integrated – but most importantly, it also builds meaning. 

The best brands in this space will stop treating sponsorship as a badge and start treating it as a system. One that runs through the funnel: 

1. Awareness through visible, high-reach platforms; 
2. Engagement through creative content and destination storytelling;
3. Conversion through travel offers, fan travel packages, and CRM integration. 

That’s how sponsorship becomes a real growth driver, and that’s exactly where The Value Xchange helps brands win.
 

Looking Ahead: Where Online Travel Sponsorship Goes Next 

For OTAs, the next phase of growth will be about connection, credibility, and conversion. 

After years of competing on convenience and price, the best brands will now compete on meaning. They’ll look to utilise sponsorship as a way of forging connections and proving reliability and relevance. 

Expect to see: 

• Greater integration with live experiences, from fan travel to festivals 

• Sharper measurement and data analysis, linking awareness directly to bookings 

• Purpose-led partnerships, showcasing sustainability and community engagement 

• Growth in underused spaces like cycling, culture, and women’s sport 

As consumer expectations continue to rise, trust will remain a key differentiator for OTAs. Sponsorship gives OTAs a way to earn that trust by being present where people already feel connected and inspired. 

By 2030, the OTA category will look very different. The winning brands won’t just be the fastest or cheapest, they’ll be the ones people trust. 

At The Value Xchange, we help digital-first brands show up in the real world through sponsorships that make people both feel and act. Whether you’re exploring the space for the first time or looking to take your partnerships further, we’ll help you find opportunities that turn awareness into action and emotion into impact. 

If you’re ready to see what happens when your brand stops chasing clicks and starts creating genuine connection, let’s talk.