Influencer marketing just isn't our style.
Most days, we get a message that goes like this:
“Hey, my bf and I want to check out your hot springs. Are you interested in a collaboration?”
Upon closer examination, our new friends tend to have a few thousand followers and often pictures, wonderfully produced, of themselves. Doing things. Or not doing things, featuring themselves.
We quickly learn that the invitation to “collaborate” consists of them asking for free nights in return for posting about us to their audience. Our response is often along these lines:
“We would love to have you all join us anytime you’d like as a customer. We aim to build an entirely authentic and storytelling-based relationship with our customers. So while we welcome all the user-generated content that comes our way on our behalf, we don’t want to compromise the trust our guests have for us by compensating any guest for their exposure and reach.”
Sometimes we get a response, but mostly we don’t. We respect all the influential people out there. We appreciate all the helpful posts about our space and mission. We equally celebrate all of our guests, regardless of “influence,” and applaud any and all creative, authentic, and original content. We just refuse to buy it in order to co-opt your attention.
So, we wanted to make our values known. If you stumble upon a glorious Maple photo from someone out in the wild, you can trust it is 100 percent authentic and genuine. We will never pay anyone to attempt to influence you.
We invite you to join us as active, conscious consumers. Resist the fad turning friends, families, and faces into billboards. Demand transparency from those you follow. Seek out authenticity. Support originality. Foster creativity.
Besides, we already have the most influential Fox ambassador out there, and she only collaborates for belly rubs.