Emerging Travel Group has launched ETG Marketing Hub, a dedicated advertising unit designed to help hotels, airlines, tourism boards and other travel brands reach travellers and travel professionals already in the market for their next trip.
The move follows a sharp increase in advertiser demand across ETG’s platforms. The company says marketing revenue doubled in the first eight months of 2026 compared with the same period last year, giving the group a fairly persuasive reason to turn what had been a collection of promotional services into a focused commercial operation.
ETG, the travel technology group behind RateHawk, ZenHotels and Roundtrip, says the new Hub combines advertising opportunities across its own platforms with external media and distribution partners. In practical terms, that gives travel companies one point of contact to plan campaigns across multiple channels, instead of knocking on several doors and hoping somebody remembers where the media kit went.
A bigger shop window for travel brands
ETG says RateHawk and ZenHotels together reach millions of individual travellers and more than 110,000 travel professionals across 180 countries.
That scale is central to the proposition. For advertisers, the attraction is not simply audience size but its relevance. Hotels, airlines, rail operators, destination marketing organisations, destination management companies and tourism boards are all looking for travellers who are not merely dreaming about a holiday but are closer to booking one.
Felix Shpilman, CEO of Emerging Travel Group, said the company’s 16 years in the market had helped it build a network connecting travel suppliers with both professional and individual bookers.
“Demand for proven solutions that give advertisers visibility among high-intent travel buyers is surging, and the dedicated unit within ETG will enable us to better meet the needs of our advertising partners,” Shpilman said.
That phrase, “high-intent travel buyers”, is doing some heavy lifting. The travel industry has never been short of eyeballs. What suppliers really want are eyeballs attached to people with passports, credit cards and an actual reason to travel.
Campaigns from planning to performance
ETG Marketing Hub supports clients throughout the campaign lifecycle, from strategy and creative development to activation, performance tracking, and post-campaign reporting.
Campaigns can use a broad mix of formats, including banners, priority placements, bespoke newsletters, dedicated landing pages, familiarisation trips, social media marketing and other promotional options.
Anna Kladova, Chief Marketing Officer at Emerging Travel Group and Managing Director of the advertising unit, said the goal was to help travel brands reach audiences more effectively.
“Our goal is to give travel brands the tools they need to reach the right audiences. With 16 years of experience, extensive data, and a deep understanding of our users, we are well positioned to deliver on that goal,” Kladova said.
She added that campaigns could be tailored to objectives ranging from driving hotel occupancy and promoting particular routes or seasonal offers to increasing destination arrivals.
For travel suppliers, the commercial logic is straightforward. A hotel group may need to fill beds in a shoulder season. An airline may want attention on a new route. A tourism board may need to turn destination awareness into arrivals. ETG is betting that its data, distribution reach and knowledge of travel-booking behaviour can help bridge that gap.
More than another advertising menu
The launch also reflects a broader shift in travel distribution. Technology platforms that once concentrated primarily on transactions are increasingly turning their audiences, data and supplier relationships into advertising businesses of their own.
That creates opportunities, but it also raises the bar. Travel brands will expect evidence that campaigns are producing meaningful traffic and commercial results, not simply impressive-looking reach figures.
For travel advisors, more targeted promotions across trade platforms could mean greater exposure to product news, destination campaigns and supplier offers. The important distinction, as always, is transparency: paid prominence should be clearly identifiable so advisors can separate advertising from organic search or recommendation.
ETG Marketing Hub enters the market with considerable reach and a clearly defined travel audience. Whether it becomes an essential part of travel brands’ media plans will depend on performance, but the demand behind its launch suggests suppliers are already looking for new ways to reach bookers more efficiently.
And in travel marketing, where everybody wants to be in the right place at the right time, ETG has decided it would rather own a little more of the signposting.
More information about campaign opportunities is available directly through the ETG Marketing Hub.
By: Alison Jenkins – © 2026.
Read Time: 4 minutes.
Author Bio:
Alison Jenkins has lived most of her working life in the slipstream of aviation, where timetables matter, and people matter more. In airline sales, she built a reputation the old-fashioned way: by knowing her clients, her routes, and never missing the human detail.
Quick with a smile, quicker with a solution, she made deals with warmth and kept her edge intact.
Trade shows, FAM’s, airport lounges and hotel lobbies became her second address. And somewhere along the way, notebook in hand, she began writing the journeys rather than selling them. Her reports grew lively, observant, full of the small truths only travellers notice.
That was the moment it dawned on her: she wasn’t simply travelling. She belonged in its stories.
