In September 2016, Google decided to launch Google Trips, a personalized travel planner. It is a combination of data from Google Maps and reviews from travellers. The aim is to offer to the users a customizable guide and a tracking of reservations, attractions, points of interests… With the growing of companies such as Airbnb and TripAdvisor, the giant Google decided to take a step further. Indeed, a discount feature has been implemented on Google Trips. Users can now get discounts off Tours, car rentals, and other activities, thanks to Google’s partnerships with booking platforms (Expedia, Booking …)
This is Google’s first move towards the category of promoting tours and activities. More importantly, this move matches Airbnb move to offer full experience trips. Last but not least, it brings Google into an industry that has been in the spotlight this two past years with new records from TripAdvisor and GetYourGuide. However, by promoting these tours, Google risks grounding down these start-ups as it tries to enter the industry. But, offering discounts to only users might strengthen the usage and popularity of the app.
As for now, Google Trips is far from being as popular as other free travel apps, in terms of downloads and ratings. But it’s still an important upgrade from their previous app, Field Trip. The real upgrade came from the addition of notifications to the users about hotels rate change. Google also added a dynamic search and revamped their hotel and flight search, to create that competitive advantage.
In my opinion, Google decision to launch Google trips is a big step towards the digital tourism. They are competing with a lot of start-ups on different features, which is great for the dynamic of the sector. Moreover, partnering with a lot of other stakeholders is reinforcing this previous idea.
Adrien Della Valle and Mamoun El Youssi
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