Destination Google

Friends and family plant the seeds of travel inspiration, but travel planning starts with search. And search begins with Google. We take a look at what Google’s new travel tools mean for destination marketers.

 Google is consolidating its position of strength in the travel planning process with two new travel products: Google Trips and Destinations on Google. A Google spokesperson said: “We love to travel and are hard at work dreaming up new ways to make the travel experience hassle-free.”

Google Trips

Google Trips is a forthcoming travel app that acts as a virtual personal travel assistant. Its main functionality is travel itinerary management. You’ll also be able to use it to explore information about a destination. Currently members of the Google Maps Local Guides program are testing Trips.

The Dutch site Android World features leaked images of Google Trips. These show Google Trip’s Things To Do feature breaks down into tabs called:

• Top Spots
• For You
• Indoor
• Outdoor
• Farther Away
• Places A to Z

Travel industry publication Skift, rightly identifies the For You option, as particularly intriguing. How will Google tackle personalisation, given the quantity of information they hold about us all?

Use Google Trips to:

• Automatically build an archive of past and upcoming travel itineraries. Trips scans your Gmail to collect travel data.
• Manually create itineraries.
• Manage reservations and find information and recommendations on nearby activities, attractions, restaurants, accommodation etc.,
• Get directions from one location to another using various mode of transport.
• Provide reviews and share photos on places of interest.
• Save and view trip information when your device is offline.

Destinations on Google

Destinations on Google is a mobile search tool launched in February 2016. You can use it to discover travel inspiration and plan your holiday.

To try the new tool, use your mobile to search Google, “for the continent, country, or state you’d like to travel to and add the word ‘destination’ to see an easy-to-browse collection of options”. Presently, the tool only works  for specific destinations and when the word destination is used in the search query.

Destinations aggregates travel information from Google Flights and Hotel search, Wikipedia, Google My Business and other partner websites. You can browse, plan, and compare prices for flights and accommodation.

Use Destinations on Google to:

• Learn about a destination.
• Find useful information, such as popular travel months for tourists, and climate.
• Browse recommended attractions and activities.
• View itineraries from travellers who have visited the same location, using data from Google Maps.
• Compare prices for accommodation and flights. Bookings are handled outside of Destinations on Google. Google earns revenue from partners when users book their travel through Google Flights or Google Hotels.

What does this mean for destination marketers?

Destinations on Google results appear at the top of search results. They push your organic search results further down the rankings, with Destination and paid search results taking precedence. The most significant immediate short term effect of Destinations on Google may be a drop in organic search traffic for destination marketing websites.

How can you combat that drop in traffic? Well, Google giveth with one hand, as it taketh away. Their guide to I-want-to-get-away-moments, and what they mean for travel marketers, is a handy user friendly guide to improving your organic traffic. It’s part of a six-part series of articles on travel micro-moments from Google. The series is invaluable reading for destination marketers.

To summarise, it’s early days to tell how Destinations on Google will alter the travel search landscape. At present there appears to be little you can do to ensure your destination appears to its best advantage in these new tools. Nor does Google tell us how you can leverage Destinations to promote your content more widely. Google Trips is currently in beta testing so it’s largely an unknown quantity.

How can you future proof your marketing efforts?

You may be able to do a few things to help future proof your destination marketing efforts against Google’s disrupting incursions into the travel market.

• Destinations on Google information on specific attractions is largely generated from Google business listings. Destination marketing organisations would do well to encourage their members to optimise their Google My Business pages, sharing great imagery, reviews and complete Google Maps information.

• Google Trips uses a combination of features from existing Google products, including Google Map and Google Now. Recommendations in the app are based on a combination of top destinations and what Google has learned about your preferences. Destination marketing sites are more likely to rank well in the app if they have good local rankings and best practise SEO.

• Schema mark ups help ensure Google correctly interprets the data on your website and returns relevant and useful search results for users.

• Destinations on Google pulls through video. Using more video on your website and your YouTube channel may help your content rank in Destinations. Furthermore, video is a great investment, whatever its application to Google’s new travel tools, as it’s a key influencer in the travel decision making process, with 64% of people watching travel-related videos thinking about taking a trip.1  Google writes: “The most popular type of travel videos watched on YouTube are travel vlogs. Even though travel vlogs are the most viewed and most engaging type of travel videos, only 14% of vlogs on YouTube are created by brands; 86% come from YouTube creators.2 This is a good opportunity for brands: Make sure you’re creating content that speaks to the needs of your audience in engaging formats.”

This article was researched and written by digital marketer Cara Au Yeung and content strategist Lizzie Davidson.

FOOTNOTES

1: Google/Ipsos MediaCT, “The 2015 Traveler’s Road to Decision,” base: U.S. leisure and business travelers who watched/commented on travel-related video, leisure n=1,230, business n=87, Aug. 2015.

2: Google/Pixability, YouTube travel study, YouTube analysis, Global-English, Apr. 2016.