SKEMA Digital Marketing in Tourism and Events: Graph Search: A new lease of life in the tourism industry?

You have probably heard of the new social search engine launched by Facebook, few days ago. It is called “Graph Search”. The article written by Philippe Fabry from Atout France and published on etourisme.info (January 16^th, 2013) describes this new tool. Besides, it also explains the different impacts it could have on the tourism industry. Please find the link below.

Facebook was looking for a new feature to reassure its investors. It appeared that its advertising model was not profitable enough. That is why on January 15th 2013, Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Graph Search. For the moment, only a limited beta version is available on the English-speaking Facebook.

How does it work?

It enables members to do a research on a subset of content, as on Google. It focuses on interests, place, people and pictures. The tool gives them a number of answers depending on their profile and friends’ network. To be clearer, here is an example. If a member searches for “my colleagues living in San Francisco” (Fabry P. (January 16^th, 2013) Facebook lance Graph Search, son moteur de recherché social, etourisme.info), he will see pictures of his colleagues who live there appear.

Moreover, when members would not find an answer in the internal website of Facebook, they will be redirected on Bing. It puts Facebook in direct competition with Google.

What could be the impacts on travel?

Regarding tourism, Facebook members will have the possibility to look for every aspect of trips of their friends and family: hotels, restaurants, attractions, specific destination, sports, special event and pictures of them. For example, they could search for “hotels that my friends went to in Paris” or “Tourist attractions in Spain visited by my friends” etc.

We know that recommendation from friends and relatives is a frequent motivation in the tourism industry. If you know that your brother went to this specific hotel in Miami and that his experience there was amazing, you will definitely book this hotel for your future trip in Miami. Recommendation from friends and family is stronger and more efficient than those from an unknown internet user that you can find on recommendations’ websites.

This article is interesting as it allows internet users to be more familiar with Facebook’s new tool. It seems to be a powerful research feature. “People use search engines to answer questions,” Zuckerberg says. “But we can answer a set of questions that no one else can really answer. All those other services are indexing primarily public information, and stuff in Facebook isn’t out there in the world — it’s stuff that people share.” (Levy S. (January 15^th, 2013) Facebook’s Bold, Compelling and Scary Engine of Discovery: The Inside Story of Graph Search, wired.com)

In addition, people will enjoy having advice from friends and family that they trust, without having to disturb them by email. It could also validate their choice of going to a particular place. For instance, you would like to invite your parents to a new restaurant but are not sure if the dishes are of good quality. If you saw that your cousin posted a comment when she went to this restaurant 2 months ago saying “Wonderful time with family at this original restaurant – Loved the home-made lasagna!”, you will go there.

However, it is important to note that this information was already available on Facebook. This new search bar will only make research easier. Indeed, without this tool, how could you do to find who from your 400 friends has been to Thailand? It will take hours to find the right people.

Privacy is another issue that Facebook has to manage. In order to work, internet users have to trust Facebook. Otherwise, members will not put their private information such as photos or places they went to. If they think that this tool is reliable, they will enjoy putting information which may help their friends afterwards. Therefore, privacy parameters should be clearly defined and members have to know how to use them.

Would it revolutionize the tourism industry? It seems that Graph Search will have more impacts at regional level rather than internationally. Indeed, local attractions (restaurants, museums…) will probably be more impacted.