From Search to Scroll: Turning Discovery into Bookings

Judith Eyck, Chief Operating Officer at HolidayPirates Group, delivered a 22-minute keynote arguing that social media scrolling has replaced search as the primary travel discovery channel — and that OTAs clinging to search-first strategies are fighting the wrong battle. HolidayPirates operates across 10 markets with 35 million followers and subscribers, driving 90% organic traffic with no paid acquisition.

Eyck opened by framing the zero-click reality: search traffic is declining, informational content drives fewer clicks, and buying reach via Google, TV, or even ChatGPT's new sponsored listings is an escalating cost spiral that small-to-mid OTAs cannot win. Her counter-thesis: 'half of travelers want to book a trip they've seen on social media' and 'three out of four start their journey on social media.' Her company stopped playing the search game entirely and built a short-video-first operation instead.

The operational framework she shared has four pillars. First, trend-spotting: rather than brainstorming content weekly, HolidayPirates has employees scroll social media as part of their job, supplemented by AI tools that surface trending sounds, aesthetics, and destinations before they peak. The Lapland example illustrated this — they matched a then-viral audio track with Northern Lights content from a premium partner and generated 23 million views, 300,000 clicks, and €30,000 in commission from a single reel. Second, curation: from billions of daily partner offers across 10 markets, the team selects only 10–15 deals per day per market to feature on social, prioritising shock prices and trend-fit over margin or inventory fill. A 'too good to be true' deal with a top partner generated 10 million views and significant direct commission. Third, hooks: the first half-second controls whether a viewer scrolls past. HolidayPirates favours contrast hooks ('not this, but this') — e.g., positioning an obscure Eastern European city against Valencia — sometimes sacrificing commission-driving traffic deliberately in order to keep the algorithm warm and boost reach on adjacent posts. Fourth, selling the vibe not the product: nearly every reel uses UGC or POV-style content. A girls'-trip reel cited as a recent high performer. Eyck explicitly disagreed with a prior panelist who dismissed influencers, saying micro and emerging creators are valuable — but authenticity is non-negotiable.

The scaling mechanism is HolidayPirates' best-kept secret, disclosed for the first time at this session: the company's 145 employees are trained to shoot travel video on personal holidays. Internal teams upload content, label it, and it flows into a content database. Employees are paid a small fee per clip; the company deliberately hires deal-hunters and travelers so content quality is naturally high. Additionally, micro-creators with small but authentic followings are offered distribution across HolidayPirates' multi-market reach in exchange for free content — no cash payment, just a tag or mention.

AI is used exclusively for process automation — trend detection, content database uploads, content labelling, and creator outreach — never for generating or touching video or image content. Eyck was categorical: 'AI will never touch our brand or our content. We will never generate content with AI.' The stated reason is that AI-generated content is becoming visually bland and recognisable, while UGC retains authenticity.

In the Q&A, a marketer from Zakynthos asked about the lack of clickable links on TikTok and Instagram; Eyck's answer was to put links in the first comment and explicitly call it out in the caption CTA. A second questioner from a Cairo holiday homes business asked about relevance to that property type; Eyck noted HolidayPirates does drive commission for domestic and drive-to holiday homes but has not yet seen meaningful volume for Egyptian holiday homes specifically.