Brussels' tourism agency Visit Brussels has spent over €260,000 on influencer campaigns since 2023, a gamble that has generated an impressive €1.4 million return.
It comes amid the Belgian capital's fight to protect its image against negative online "rage-bait" and the city's reputation of somehow being both boring and dangerous.
According to BX1, Visit Brussels (visit.brussels) has paid influencers over €260,000 to promote the Belgian capital since 2023.
Influencers were paid to attend events such as the Comic Strip Festival, the Bright Brussels Festival, Brussels Pride, and the 20 km of Brussels. They were also paid to produce lifestyle content exploring Brussels by sharing the itinerary of the city trip, showcasing the city's gastronomy, architecture, and heritage.
The cost of these campaigns ranged from €400 for a small one to €18,000 for a big one. The average cost for a campaign comes to a total of €5,265. The influencer's notoriety and following are also taken into account by Visit Brussels and informs the amount they are to be paid.
It is important to note that these costs typically include other production-related expenses, such as travel and accommodation.
Despite the attributed risks with hiring influencers to promote tourism in Brussels, the gamble appears to have paid off. Though difficult to fully quantify, this investment of slightly over a quarter of a million euros has over quadrupled.
Since 2023, Visit Brussels has reported generating €1,463,000 in what is referred to earned media value – the estimated advertising value of organic visibility achieved without traditional ad buying.
The agency reports a high return on investment (ROI) for these influencer-led campaigns, frequently yielding up to five times the return of traditional media spend.
Visit Brussels is not the first agency to utilise influencers, and certainly will not be the last. Other countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Iceland, have both invited influencers on press trips to garner interest in travel to their respective nations.
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The Andalusian tourism board in Spain even produced a photo book and documentary titled Frames From Andalusia, which solely focused on 10 prominent photography influencers as they created images all over the province for the photo book, whilst creating content for their own pages alongside the doc.
Visit Brussels spokesperson Jeroen Roppe told Bx1 that the 49 influencers who had done campaigns for them had full creative freedom and could express any opinions they had about the city in their content.
Roppe also expressed to BX1 that he believes that the various campaigns have been successful in improving the city’s image and attracting tourists, stating, "We've succeeded in giving Brussels an image of a dynamic, young, cultural, cosmopolitan city, a region with a strong personality."
The city’s image is now more important than ever before due to the influx of negative content in Brussels propagated by right-wing influencers, as previously covered by The Brussels Times.
Due to this factor, among many other positive outcomes from working with influencers, Visit Brussels will continue paid collaborations with content creators despite budget cuts in 2027.
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