For a few, they're the modern equivalent of niche hobby and fashion magazines[1]. They publish some free content on Instagram or Youtube, maybe get some ad revenue, but also publish premium content on a subscription model, or have actual business arrangements with companies. But, they're working hard to do what they do.
EDIT - I didn't really address the original question, which was about one specific woman. I have no idea. I doubt she's being paid by resort owners. Either she has money, friends with money, or she's an escort. Or maybe something else I can't think of.
0 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4SXMZsFPZMFN5-3UuF-k6w Trent Palmer does a lot of airplane stuff, but earns his living shooting drone footage for movies and commercials.
1 - https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-lonely-life-of-a-yac... Alex Jimenez has business relationships with yacht brokers and gets paid to generate content in order to drive clients to lease/buy mega-yachts.
General rule is at least 1/1000th of viewers are buyers. A youtube videos with hundreds of thousands of views have sold hundreds bikinis.
Companies may give you a product to show off for free or even pay you, but that doesn't make money like selling it.
And as a general rule, each bikini sold nets the affiliate about 10¢. So with 100,000 views, that's ten bucks.
After deducting standard business expenses, travel, food, etc... (since "influencers" almost always have to pay their own way), you make about -$4,000 per trip.
I think this explains why so many "influencers" are riding on their parents' money.
Somewhere between 10 and 100 dollars is not bad for a video that took a day to make in one's bedroom.
Don't know why you're talking about trips. It's never been about traveling. Traveling costs money, it doesn't pay. There are very profitable affiliate schemes for hotels but I doubt they are accessible to a solo teenager and it's nothing like selling a cheap item.
Asking her directly may not get you a real answer.
The inside view and the appearance to outsiders always differs some, no matter the topic.
A co-worker brought her kid to work. Another co-worker asked the child what he wanted to be when he grows up. The child responded instantly, "I want to be a YouTube star!"
Marketing is a skill. Just because it doesn't appear valuable to you doesn't mean it's not valuable to someone. For examples on the importance of marketing, see the histories of Tesla, Tinder, most big-budget movies, nearly all triple-A games, Wool, Harry Potter, Twilight Saga, nearly all restaurants, most tangible goods purchased in a store, cars and trucks, airlines... The point is that just making a good product isn't enough anymore; there are plenty of good products. Marketing is what makes people aware that your product exists and/or makes it the preferred option the next time they are in need of that type of product.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/insta...
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17330732
Do people pay for her to come to those resorts? Is she just not posting anything about her real life on Instagram to make it look like she doesn't work? Is 12,000 followers really a lot?