After more than a decade operating deep inside the digital marketing and creator economy, Rob Torres has seen the full arc of how brands and creators evolve together and where those relationships break down. In eCommerce and consumer brands, the creator economy has matured rapidly. AI tools now script ads, generate creatives, analyze performance, and help brands scale creator content with precision. Platforms have optimized every step of the funnel. The result is an ecosystem where creators are no longer just “influencers,” but performance-driven partners tied directly to revenue. But as Torres watched this evolution unfold, one industry stood out for being dramatically behind the curve: travel and tourism.
Hotels, resorts, and experience-based brands still rely on outdated playbooks-overpaying traditional agencies for glossy content that doesn’t convert, engaging creators based on follower counts rather than outcomes, and running influencer campaigns with no real infrastructure for tracking bookings or ROI. Meanwhile, AI-generated creators can’t physically travel, stay on property, or document real experiences. Authentic travel storytelling still requires humans on location- but the systems supporting them are stuck in the past. That gap is where Ukreate was born.
Ukreate is often misunderstood as “just another creator marketplace.” Torres is clear: it isn’t. Founded and operated out of Miami, Florida, Ukreate is being built as a full ecosystem- a modern infrastructure designed specifically for travel creators and hospitality brands to work together with clarity, accountability, and measurable outcomes. Rather than acting as a listing board, Ukreate provides tools that streamline collaboration between hotels and creators, vetted travel creators who understand how to produce booking-driven content, systems that prioritize outcomes- not just aesthetics, and a UGC-first approach designed for modern social media consumption. The goal is simple but overdue: ensure hotels are satisfied not just with content, but with the results that content produces.
Most hotels don’t fail with creators because creators “don’t work.” They fail because the infrastructure doesn’t exist. Creators are often left cold-emailing hotels with no response. Hotels struggle to identify which creators actually drive bookings. Agencies act as expensive middlemen, disconnected from performance. Everyone loses time, money, and momentum. Ukreate changes that dynamic by aligning incentives on both sides. For hotels and travel brands, it offers access to creators who are trained, vetted, and aligned with real marketing objectives. For creators, it provides access to exclusive relationships that are nearly impossible to secure through cold outreach alone- while supporting the reality of making content creation a full-time, location-based career.
As attention spans shrink and trust in polished advertising continues to erode, UGC-first content is now essential, not experimental. Torres recognized early that the same principles driving success in eCommerce- authenticity, velocity, iteration, and distribution- apply even more powerfully to travel. The difference is execution. Travel content must be lived, not simulated. It must be captured on property, in real moments, by creators who understand storytelling and conversion. Ukreate exists to operationalize that reality at scale.
On the flip side, Ukreate is building something the creator economy has long lacked: a centralized, professional community for travel creators who are committed to making content while traveling- not as a hobby, but as a livelihood. These are creators whose mission is to document experiences, tell stories, and deliver value to brands while living the travel lifestyle full-time. Ukreate supports those ambitions with structure, access, and opportunity- removing the friction that has historically limited creator growth in the travel space.
Rob Torres isn’t entering travel marketing as an outsider- he’s bringing ten years of hard-earned experience from digital performance marketing into an industry that desperately needs modernization. Ukreate represents that commitment: a deliberate shift away from vanity metrics and outdated agency models, toward a system that respects creators, delivers for hotels, and reflects how social media actually works today. This isn’t about chasing viral moments. It’s about building the infrastructure that makes them repeatable. And for an industry still operating in the past, that shift couldn’t come at a better time.
