Sixty percent of TikTok users say they’ve visited a new place after seeing it featured in travel content. That’s a pretty significant figure–and it’s indicative of Gen Z’s growing thirst for travel, which content platforms, brands like Southwest, and new media companies like LOST iN have recognized could be a significant driving force in sales of plane tickets, hotel stays, and package holidays.
Turns out the country of Switzerland also recognizes this thirst, because it recently partnered with Creator Camp to bring 80 creators to the alpine resort village Saas-Fee, a location its Tourism Director for the Americas Claudio Zemp says hasn’t gotten as much attention from spendy American travelers as Switzerland would like.
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Creator Camp was founded in 2021 by creators Max Reisinger, Simon Kim, and Chris Duncan. They wanted to hold summer camps and multi-day retreats for both aspiring and established content creators, with the ultimate goal to “shape a better internet by fostering deeper connections and providing more space for meaningful stories online.”
Each camp offers presentations and mentoring from experts, and they all involve the completion of some kind of project–usually a project that involves multiple creators working together.
At its seventh camp, sponsored by Notion, Patreon, and RØDE, the 80 creators who came to Saas-Fee spent three days exploring the village and the surrounding mountainous Valais region. And then, once they’d soaked up all that inspiration, they were teamed in small groups to create 90-second short films in just eight hours.
“The result? Not just millions of views, but films that resonate long after the initial release, offering a rewatchable experience that celebrates the region’s beauty through the lens of authentic storytelling,” Creator Camp organizers said. “This new strategy introduces a more sustainable model for tourism boards, one where regions become romanticized through film, with the landscapes deeply woven into the fabric of the story. Instead of being featured in a brief, forgettable TikTok clip, the Valais Region found itself imprinted on audiences’ minds, elevating its identity in a way that only narrative filmmaking can achieve.”
Creator Camp screened participants’ videos at the first-ever film festival in Leukerbad, pitting them against one another for a $20,000 grand prize judged by industry vets and fellow creators. Creator trio Gawx, Schyguyy, and Aawoza took home the $20K for their film A Love Letter to the Mountains (embedded above), with Nneka Julia, Amanda Rach Lee, Linh Truong, and Tiffany Tan receiving $10,000 for their runner-up, Drop:
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget those two hours, sitting in that auditorium on the last night, watching all our work get played on the big screen,” participant Justin Shen tells Tubefilter. (His film was Aki no Kaze, made with Elliot Choy, Peace Gates, and KeoniFilms.)
“I had never properly collaborated with anyone before,” Gawx adds. “Our group was like 1 person with 3 brains, everything flowed so smoothly and we were able to express ourselves freely.”
While these films (which are pretty accomplished, especially when you remember they were made, start to finish, in eight hours) aren’t strictly about traveling to Saas-Fee, the village’s rustic architecture, snow-drenched mountains, and golden-green fields feature prominently, and we’re betting a YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram viewer with some cash to burn could see one of these short films and think, Yeah, I could use a few days there.
And that’s all part of the plan.
“We are thrilled to be able to showcase Saas Fee and the Valais Matterhorn Region to the Creator Camp family and their followers. Creator Camp’s mission aligns perfectly with Switzerland Tourism’s travel better strategy,” Zemp said in a statement. “We are hosting this event in the fall to showcase the beauty of off-season travel in a breathtaking alpine valley, which has, so far, remained under American tourists’ radar.”
Creator Camp’s partnership with Switzerland is pretty pioneering, but the Swiss tourism board certainly isn’t the first to tap creators. Cities like Dubai have put together major initiatives to lure creators into visiting, and there are tons of creators on TikTok sharing info about which boards around the world actively welcome influencers, And, based on the data we mentioned above, we expect that more and more governments will follow suit, offering creators incentives to come make content that shows off tourist-ready locales to travel-ready viewers.