With Summer Travel Shifting to Domestic Escapes, CTV Is a Must-Have for Marketers

Author: Peter Jones, VP of Revenue, Premion 

As we head into the summer season, leisure travel remains a top priority for consumers—even as they become more selective with their discretionary spending, with Americans continuing to rank it above other non-essential categories, according to Deloitte’s 2025 travel industry outlook.

But this summer, the trend is shifting closer to home. Many travelers are opting for domestic getaways over international adventures. In fact, 68% of Americans are staying stateside and uncovering hidden gems right in their own backyards, according to a new Skyscanner report. This shift is driven by a mix of economic uncertainty, cost sensitivity, and the craving for more flexible, quick escapes—making it more important than ever for marketers to connect with audiences right where they are.

In today’s competitive travel landscape, where a broad range of options are vying for consumer attention, marketers are increasingly turning to Connected TV (CTV) as a powerful, performance-driven media channel. CTV offers travel brands advanced targeting, measurement, and attribution capabilities, enabling campaigns that drive real outcomes like increased visitation and brand lift.

With access to data-rich targeting, travel marketers can deploy sophisticated CTV strategies to reach the right audience at scale — from demographic or contextual targeting to intent-based and audience-first approaches. For example, with persona-based targeting, brands reach not only travel enthusiasts, but also like-minded consumers such as hotel rewards members or those shopping for travel gear online.

As performance becomes the priority, closed-loop attribution has made streaming TV a must-have for travel marketers. With advanced destination attribution, they can see how campaigns drive visitation lift — including where visitors come from, how far they travel, how long they stay, and how often they return.

A recent 9-month Premion CTV campaign for a southern Gulf Coast beach destination successfully engaged diverse travel audiences across 14 key feeder markets. By leveraging custom-curated audiences along with brand lift and website attribution measurement, the campaign drove strong performance — including 45,000 website visits within 7 days of exposure. The campaign also delivered meaningful brand impact, with a +16% lift in awareness, +21% in favorability, and +20% in consideration.  Additionally, the campaign improved the association of the destination with family vacations (+34%), friend's getaways (+20%), and beach vacations (+15%). Together, website visits and brand lift tell the full story: one captures immediate action, the other lasting brand impact. It’s proof that the campaign didn’t just reach travelers — it drove meaningful outcomes.

Premion is a proven partner in driving measurable outcomes for many travel brands and we’ve successfully executed a multitude of campaigns for hundreds of travel and tourism brands.

Download our free report, “STREAMING TV TRENDS & OUTLOOK: The Streaming TV Playbook: Winning Strategies for Marketers in a Shifting Advertising Marketplace,” for more insights on developing and implementing an effective CTV advertising strategy.