In the $11+ trillion global tourism industry, destinations pay premium rates to influencers for social posts while countless travelers capture valuable footage that sits unused on their phones. NaviSavi, founded in 2018, has built a marketplace to unlock this overlooked user-generated content (UGC) resource, enabling travel brands to access geolocated video footage while creating a new revenue stream for everyday travelers.

“We always tell our creators, ‘You can make money from your camera roll—all this B-roll footage that you’re shooting that you don’t have time to edit and put together,’” explains Sally Bunnell, NaviSavi’s founder and CEO. Her platform serves two distinct audiences: travel businesses seeking authentic destination content, and content creators of all sizes looking to monetize travel footage beyond social media engagement.

The platform breaks from the influencer-centric model that dominates travel marketing. “We think anyone can be a creator. Whether you have 2 or 2 million followers, it doesn’t matter on our platform,” states Sally, a former music executive and digital nomad who has visited 118 countries.

NaviSavi’s model separates content value from creator popularity by focusing on the utility of authentic travel experiences captured on video. Creators receive upfront payment for uploads plus ongoing revenue shares when their content is licensed—creating passive income from footage that would otherwise remain unused.

“We’ve got super creators who are traveling constantly and making several thousand dollars a month just by uploading their day-by-day activities,” Sally reveals. “We’ve got travelers in Thailand that are not just traveling for free, but profiting on this.”

NaviSavi’s structured marketplace offers standardized licensing terms and centralized payment processing. “We basically pre-package what those rights would be,” explains Sally. “We do all those negotiations basically depending on the deal [clients] want.”

She adds that this streamlining has particular appeal for government agencies and larger travel brands facing bureaucratic hurdles with individual creator negotiations. 

“If the bid is over X amount of dollars, many government agencies have to run it through a special system of approvals,” notes Sally. “They’re coming to places like NaviSavi, saying, ‘I can just get something for a flat rate that’s standardized or at least in a tiered system.’ They only have to make one payment, and then we do all the distribution payments.”

NaviSavi takes a percentage of each licensing transaction, similar to how royalties work in the music industry. “Every time your video is licensed, you get a percentage of that every time,” says Sally. 

Image: Sally presenting at the Tirada Digital Nomads Festival 2024

A Platform Engineered for Both Sides of the Marketplace

NaviSavi has designed its platform to address specific pain points for both content creators and travel brands, creating a marketplace where value flows in both directions.

Creators upload vertical videos (30 seconds or less, with 10-12 seconds being the “sweet spot”) of travel experiences, from hotel rooms to restaurants to attractions. Each post can include up to three videos showcasing different aspects of a single location. After passing a light quality review (only 3-4% of videos are rejected), creators immediately receive $1-2 per approved video.

“Most of our creators, just for uploading videos, on average make around $100 an hour,” says Sally. The key feature is that creators maintain ownership of their content, simply granting NaviSavi non-exclusive licensing rights. “You own your content, you can sell it to anyone else, you can license it, you own it, you can post it wherever. It just gives us the right to go out and almost be your agent.”

For travel brands, the platform offers direct access to geolocated, genuine travel footage. “It is not just a travel video of a girl in a beautiful dress on a mountaintop somewhere or over a cityscape,” Sally emphasizes. “It takes you so much more granular, which is a point of interest on a map, and you can see it with your own eyes.”

The platform has demonstrated its ability to source specific content, as the founder explains with an example: “We had a brand that was like, ‘I need this one restaurant/bar in Sun Valley, Idaho.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re on it.’ Within less than 48 hours, we had the clip and about 12 clips for them to review and pick from.”

According to Sally, the platform’s performance metrics demonstrate why travel brands are embracing this approach. “User-generated content gets four times more click-throughs than professional content. But we are noticing with our UGC for travel that we’re almost doubling that to almost eight or nine times the click-through rate,” Sally says. 

She shares that one client saw an 860% increase in reach after incorporating NaviSavi’s content, while another found that posts using NaviSavi’s user-generated video consistently outperformed other content month after month.

The Trust Factor: Why Travel UGC Drives Results

Sally believes NaviSavi’s content performance stems from a key insight about travel decision-making: trust matters more than polish. Unlike many purchases, travel involves important investments of both time and money, with no returns possible if expectations aren’t met.

“The two things that people do not have enough of are time or money when it comes to travel,” Sally points out. “So if we can help them by having a better experience [where] they know what they’re in for, they can see what they’re going to be getting, it’s not some polished version of a hotel room where you don’t get the exact same room.”

NaviSavi’s approach lets the footage speak for itself. “You don’t need somebody to describe, ‘Well, the room was like this and this and this.’ You can see with your own two eyes the exact same experience that they’re recording. Nothing is edited; it just shows peer-to-peer as if you’re FaceTiming with a friend.”

This content contrasts with influencer-created content that reflects compensation rather than honest opinion and professionally produced marketing materials. “Are they going to give the best review, or will they give a real opinion?” Sally asks rhetorically about traditional influencer partnerships. “What we’ve decided with NaviSavi’s platform is that I don’t want to make another TripAdvisor. I’m not here to tear down small businesses.”

Instead, NaviSavi’s content resembles the most trusted form of travel recommendation: advice from friends and family. “Friends and family are still your number one influence when it comes to booking a hotel or choosing a destination,” Sally notes.

Expanding Vision and Business Model

While NaviSavi began as a UGC licensing platform, Sally’s vision extends beyond content marketplace functionality. Later this year, the company will launch a full-service booking site powered by its video content, creating a direct path from inspiration to transaction.

“We will be running no different than your booking.com or Expedia, but with video content,” Sally explains.

The company is also developing new uses for its growing content library. These include video itineraries (“12 weeks through Sri Lanka, now you can start watching your itinerary”), QR-based hotel guides (“via a QR code, you can basically scan and see videos of things to do around near the hotel”), and an in-flight “buy on board” experience (“if you could take that interactive map and start tapping around and discovering things to do before you land”).

This expansion aligns with Sally’s long-term vision for NaviSavi as a platform for “the future of video content in travel.” As technology evolves, she sees potential in incorporating formats such as 360-degree video and AR experiences. “These creators are going to the top of Mount Everest and capturing these experiences. But now in spatial video, you can take people with you there from a headset.”

Managing Challenges in a Growing Marketplace

Sally notes that traditional content procurement processes remain deeply entrenched within the travel sector, requiring education and evidence to shift buying behaviors.

“Travel’s a very difficult community to break into,” she acknowledges. “Travel is very niche. Currently, there are many creators who lead interesting lifestyles and engage in travel. But to really break into the travel industry as a creator is incredibly difficult.”

According to Sally, the rise of AI-generated content presents both opportunities and potential threats. While some tourism boards have experimented with AI travel creators, she remains confident in the lasting value of genuine human experiences. “AI is always going to serve a time and a place in assisting us. But for a real experience, a thing that can be touched and smelled and felt like a destination, AI cannot bring that to you in the same sense,” she observes.

From a marketplace perspective, NaviSavi continues balancing quality standards with creator accessibility as it scales. While the company currently rejects only 3-4% of submitted videos, maintaining content standards will become increasingly important as the platform continues to grow.

“There will be a huge new wave of the new way and age in which we can all collaborate in a great way moving forward,” Sally predicts. “And that’s what NaviSavi is trying to do, and hopefully be that platform for many and all.”