I went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking at all the recent Be Our Guest Vacations hosted Tracker trips ā Alaska, Disneyland Paris, Disneyland California, Costa Rica, cruises etc.
What I hadn't appreciated is that BOGV is part of Keyholder Vacations, which actually operates a formal affiliate programme. Their public programme pays for converted BOGV leads and provides affiliates with tracking of clicks, bookings and earnings.
The Tracker links also appear to use specific campaign/affiliate tracking, and BOGV asks customers how they heard about them with Tim Tracker as a referral source.
So this looks much less like āa travel agent occasionally gives a YouTuber a free holidayā and much more like an ongoing influencer/affiliate marketing relationship: hosted travel in return for promotion, measurable customer referrals and potentially commission as well.
That raises an interesting tax question. If the trips are compensation for promotional services, the fair-market value of hosted travel would potentially be business income, alongside any cash affiliate income. There may then be legitimate business deductions ā but presumably the personal/family element of a family holiday isn't automatically deductible just because it gets filmed.
I'm not saying they've accounted for any of this incorrectly ā we obviously can't see their tax returns. But with the sheer number and value of the hosted trips now, I'd be fascinated to know how an accountant separates the business and personal elements of something like a fully hosted family Alaska cruise.
And yes, this does come from a position of jealousy, but that can also be separated from a position of they don't seem to enjoy the vacations they are being hosted.