At Advertising Week in New York in September, CMO Andréa Mallard pitched Pinterest as "the world's inspiration company."

Why should marketers care? Quoting Ms. Mallard:

"The age of interruption is over. The next generation of ads have to inspire. People have gotten good at ignoring ads that get in their way. They're over the annoyance; one in four people are now using ad blockers. In today's multi-screen, multimedia environment, the only way to stand out is to fit in. So how can ads better “fit in” with consumers’ lives? The first step is returning to the reason we all got into advertising in the first place: let’s get back to inspiring."

And specifically with regard to the travel industry, according to Pinterest Global Head of Vertical Strategy Vikram Bhaskaran:

"What's special about our business is the unique mindset where travelers are open, they're undecided and they're really looking for content from brands...Here's a place where people are explicitly coming for inspiration around travel. And you can reach them in a way that's additive to the experience."

Some statistics on Pinterest and its audience are also interesting in this connection:

• In 1Q2019 Pinterest had 291M monthly active users worldwide and awareness reach of 72%.
• 79.5% of Pinterest users are women (who are overwhelmingly the people who plan family vacations and other significant trips). Women aged 25-54 make 80% of the buying decisions in US households.
• 51% of female Pinterest users say they have found new brands by browsing Pinterest.

Also Pinterest claims:

• Travelers are 2X more likely to use Pinterest vs. traditional online travel sites. Recent hot search topics included "less traveled islands" and "small town travel".
• 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded.
• 78% of users say they have made a purchase based on seeing travel content from brands on the platform.
• 73% of users say Pinterest inspired them to plan an additional (previously unplanned) trip.

According to the digital marketers at WebFX.com typical costs for Pinterest ad campaigns are:

• Building brand awareness: $2-$5 for 1000 impressions
• Boosting engagement or driving Web traffic: $0.10-$1.50 per engagement

Comment: The combination of 97% unbranded searches and 79.5% users being women makes Pinterest look interesting as platform where tourism destinations and businesses - even little-known ones - could get the attention of potential visitors while they're in the "inspiration" stage of trip planning.

Disclaimer: As always, neither Pinterest nor any of the companies or individuals mentioned have compensated me in any way fore this review.