Submitted by Gifted

Hotel Indigo Manchester Instagram Micro-Creator Stays

Influencer Marketing

Gifted Social ran a micro-creator stay programme for Hotel Indigo Manchester and its Mamucium restaurant, and reports a +1,500% increase in engagement on the hotel's Instagram collabs.

+1,100%Views Increase
+1,500%Engagement Increase
£3K+Content Cost Saving
76.7KCreator Content Views

Case in 60 seconds

Hotel Indigo Manchester had begun working with creators, but each stay was individually negotiated and handled manually with no way to measure impact, so the channel stayed reactive rather than contributing to direct bookings, awareness and the restaurant.

The page frames Hotel Indigo as a product of its neighbourhood, so creator stories carried weight because they sold Manchester's culture and food scene alongside the rooms, which gave millennial and Gen Z travellers a reason to visit rather than a room to admire.

Gifted replaced one-off negotiated stays with a repeatable programme of matched micro-creators working from Collaboration Briefs and timed to off-peak dates, so creator content became a managed channel rather than an occasional favour.

Micro-creators with travel and lifestyle audiences stayed on off-peak and lower occupancy days, covering the hotel's interiors, the surrounding neighbourhood and Mamucium's food and cocktails through vlogs, aesthetic content and podcasts. Gifted reports 10 creator collabs posted and another 10 scheduled through a single dashboard, while Mamucium received its own complimentary campaign and licensed posts were reused on the hotel's Instagram grid.

Gifted reports a 1,100% increase in views and a 1,500% increase in engagement for its collabs on the @hotelindigomcr Instagram account, while the hotel's Instagram following grew by nearly 30% within six months and content reuse saved £3K+.

Strategy Breakdown

Millennial and Gen Z travellers drawn to Indigo's design-led style, along with non-residential diners the Mamucium restaurant wanted to reach within Manchester's food scene.
Hotels lean on OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia for bookings, so Hotel Indigo Manchester wanted creator content that built enough trust in its own identity to pull travellers toward booking direct rather than through a third party.
Hotel Indigo designs each property around the spirit of its neighbourhood, so the brand's role in the content was a way into Manchester's culture and food scene rather than a room product on its own.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Instagram

Partners

  • Gifted

Creator role

  • inarosca — creator
  • mrszaz — creator
  • Alina's Street Podcast — creator
  • Nursing Planet's Self-Care Series — creator

Results & Evidence

MetricValue
Views Increase1,100% increase
Engagement Increase1,500% increase
Content Cost Saving£3K+
Creator Content Views76.7K views
Engagement Rate10% engagement rate
Podcast Views32K views
Creator Collabs Posted10 creator collabs

Why Gifted's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Scheduling creator stays on off-peak and lower occupancy days turns unsold rooms into the fee for a collaboration, so the cost of the programme falls where occupancy is lowest rather than displacing paying guests.

  2. 2

    Giving a hotel restaurant its own creator campaign separates non-residential demand from room demand, because the coverage can speak to local diners in the city's food scene rather than only to overnight guests.

  3. 3

    Licensing creator content lets one collaboration serve both the creator's audience and the brand's own grid, which is where Gifted places the £3K+ saving against in-house creation or UGC.

  4. 4

    Moving stays from manual negotiation into a single dashboard is what makes creator work measurable, because a before and after comparison on the hotel's Instagram account only exists once every collab is tracked in one place.

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