At Food Hotel Tech 2026, a conference dedicated to new travel habits on TikTok brought together Bruno Maltor, a travel content creator followed by more than 3 million people, and Benjamin Guillemet, Vertical Director - Services at TikTok. Together, they shared a cross-perspective on changing user behaviours, the growing role of short-form video in travel planning, and the new communication codes for tourism brands.

The message was clear: TikTok is no longer just an entertainment platform. It has become a space for inspiration, search, recommendation and, increasingly, booking.

With nearly 28 million users in France, TikTok now plays a central role in digital habits. In the travel sector, this influence is especially visible.

Users no longer come only to watch videos. They search for destination ideas, reviews, experiences, restaurants, hotels and activities to discover on-site.

For younger generations, TikTok is even becoming a search engine in its own right, sometimes used before Google to find recommendations or assess the appeal of a destination.

For Bruno Maltor, TikTok has a very specific DNA: authenticity.

As a content creator for more than ten years, he explained that the platform does not necessarily reward the most polished visuals or the most impressive equipment. On the contrary, content filmed on a smartphone can sometimes perform better than a highly produced video.

Why? Because users are looking for closeness. They want to feel as if they are there, experiencing the journey alongside the person telling the story.

The conference also highlighted several major travel trends.

Among them is slow travel, which values slower, closer and more responsible journeys. Bruno Maltor mentioned destinations accessible by train as an example of travelling differently while reducing environmental impact.

Another trend is “dupe travel”: offering a lesser-known alternative to a very popular destination. Instead of visiting overcrowded places, travellers are looking for similar but more confidential experiences.

This reflects a growing expectation: to live a more personal, distinctive and less standardised travel experience.

One of the most interesting points of the discussion was the lifespan of content.

A few years ago, a TikTok video would mainly live for a few hours or days. Today, thanks to search, some videos continue to be discovered months after publication.

For a creator like Bruno Maltor, this changes everything. A video built around a simple query — such as “What to do in French Guiana?” — can now appear both on TikTok and on Google.

Short-form video is therefore becoming lasting content: able to inform, guide and influence travel decisions over time.

For tourism, hospitality and restaurant brands, TikTok brings new rules.

The first is consistency. According to Bruno Maltor, it is better to publish two pieces of content per week for several months than to post intensively for a few days and then disappear.

The second is adapting to the tone of the platform. On TikTok, the relationship is more direct, spontaneous and embodied. Informal language, humour, short formats and strong opening hooks are part of the platform’s grammar.

The third is the importance of the “hook”: the opening line in the first few seconds. In a world where attention is won almost instantly, a video must immediately give people a reason to stay.

Finally, comments are a valuable source of ideas. They reveal expectations, frustrations, desires and sometimes even the next topics to cover.

At a time when artificial intelligence can generate more and more images and content, human presence becomes even more important.

For Bruno Maltor, humanising videos is essential. Showing a face, a voice and a lived experience helps build trust in a way that perfect images alone cannot.

This is perhaps one of the strongest takeaways from the conference: in travel, as in hospitality, technology does not replace human experience. It spreads it, amplifies it and makes it more accessible.

For brands, the challenge is not simply to be present on TikTok. The challenge is to be there with sincerity, consistency and a real understanding of the platform’s uses.

Because today, a journey can begin with a video of just a few seconds. And sometimes, that is more than enough to make people want to pack their bags.