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Google City Tours and other possible trip planning innovations.

The launch of Google City Tours reported on TechCrunch today is part of its growing list of Labs products and another entry in what is becoming an ever more crowded field for trip planning solutions combining local information, mapping, user generated content and social networking. It’s far from a complete solution and still lacks elements that make it great but it’s just out of the gate and will certainly developed further. What’s important here, is that these mashups all offer in most cases a new and improved way to plan and experience a visit to a city.  The same solutions could, of course, be applied to wider geographic locations, including regions and entire countries. To extrapolate on this idea, why not for multi-day road trips or multi-destination trips involving air and rail transportation like a trip to Europe for instance. A traveler’s personalized itinerary could be assembled with these tools as part of the trip planning process with all the local services mapped out. It would present something like a turbo-charged version of the printed AAA-TripTik road plans of old that many road travelers in North America still remember using.

As a next step why not allow the customer to find and add accommodation options for each city - and maybe even restaurants - and book these services right from within the customer self-developed trip plan? We might even call it a personal preferences based, truly dynamic packaging solution. OK, maybe this all sounds like so much theory but looking at the recent developments in this area of trip planning tools, it seems in the realm of the possible that some solution along these lines might be realized as the technology capabilities required to make it happen are being built.

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Date: June 25th, 2009 @ 16:52

Author: PhoCusWright

Categories: Blog, PhoCusWrightPosts

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  • Great thoughts and a great start.

    I think a lot of us in the travel industry have long believed that a central planning / booking / packaging tool is inevitable, but very few of us own enough of that process to turn those thoughts into reality.

    Google on the other hand, does not 'own' any piece of that process, but has the ability to pull in all of the content pieces into one usable site. Now, how do we fit into this theoretical monster of a planning site?

    Interesting stuff.

    - Troy
  • That's exactly the challenge to the industry. How do the various players fit into something that to them might, as you call it, look like a monster but from the customer perspective would be a true one-stop integrated experience vs. today's click-o-rama around the web. Whenever I read statistics about how many sites a traveler visits before making a booking I can't help but think that this can't be entirely voluntary or really enjoyable after a while.

    Yes, Google might deliver a significant part of that overall experience and in the process provide quite a jolt to the travel establishment.
  • Joe, spot on, as always.

    And just for the record, I am looking forward to welcoming our travel industry overlords...Google...into the family. ;) Monster site perhaps, but so very useful for the consumer.

    Like water, the consumer is always looking for the path of least resistance when planning travel online.

    I, like you, marvel at the fact that the average consumer visits 10 or even 20 sites prior to booking a trip. That tells me that the experience on each of those sites is not what the consumer is looking for.

    Someone is going to come along and provide an elegant solution to this problem and we might just be seeing the start of it with Google City Tours.

    - Troy
  • My thoughts on the 10-20 sites is, yes, a series of imperfect experiences to be sure.

    But I think what drives that amount of site visits is the UNCERTAINTY: the feeling that maybe a better deal or better info is available on the next site or the next one.

    Then think about Google in this context: if you run a search on Google, do you go to several other engines because you're not quite sure you got the best results? You might run another keyword combo, but you're staying on Google, no? The implications are staggering.
  • What Google represents is the opportunity to aggregate the content from those 10-20 sites into a central location. If you're planning a camping trip you might want to look up hiking trails, kayaking, and bird watching in a specific geographic area. You will probably visit 5-10+ sites to research just that alone!

    It will be game changing when (not if!) Google makes that possible on their nascent travel site.
  • A lot of the uncertainty is due to the extreme price focus today in online travel the largest part of which is still airline ticket sales a commodity nobody wants to pay a buck more than necessary. As the focus shifts to more complex vacation purchases starting with research and planning for various components there will be a corresponding shift in consumer emphasis to the overall experience. Price always will remain important but other factors come into play. Tour operators have traditionally competed on more than just price. That is bound to happen as that type of business moves more online.
  • Excellent points all.

    I agree that price is certainly a factor for searching more than one site. But, if Google could show me the hotel room prices from a variety of OTAs...heck, just show me the 'best' price...then I am happy to stop my searching right there.

    - Troy
  • karenparkin
    I agree with all the points above. I think a lot of people visit 10 - 20 sites because they want to, and because they are inherently researchers of travel (and probably would do the same if buying a new TV or gadget). But what is interesting too is that there is a large % (I dont know what it is) of people who simly take the first hotel that meets their needs - and they dont look further than that. In this case Google City Tours will be a one-stop low hassle solution. I know I am not one of those people ... and I like to think I find some unique gems because I do research endlessly... but still - frequently there is very little difference between one place and the next, and if your time is limited, then you can find a really good solution. There are many different types of people.
  • Google City Tours reminds us that once everyone can be an intermediary, the future role of DMOs has to change.

    I like Google My Maps in principle because I can create relevant content - although the inability to upload my own photos and text around points of interest is still missing and when I click upload Picasa photos my map is filled with strangers' photos of no relevance to my project. If I judge prematurely and am missing something, let me know. I've never found google apps particularly intuitive..

    Google City Tours is disappointing because, at first glance, it positions Google as the content aggregator.

    Troy is right 'though - both apps will require DMOs to re-think their position and models.

    If I were Google , I'd ramp up My Maps and make it fun to use.

    Once individuals can create really pretty, accurate maps and if I were a DMO, I'd encourage visitors and residents to create and share itineraries for others to use.

    Imagine a My Map iphone application?
  • Let's remember this is just an early attempt by Google Labs. What's important to me is the potential this shows for where things are going over the next few years. It's about the big picture not the details right now. As for DMOs, they are challenged by all the new entrants in the trip planning space and they better address the issues of how to offer a great experience to travelers planning their trips online or risk becoming increasingly irrelevant.
  • I guess I am impatient (blame it on jetlag) - being a geographer, I like maps and the ability to manipulate content spatially. I welcome Google's involvement and contribution - a major source of investment that DMOs will never match but which they could work with. Agree 100% with your last sentence.
  • Anna, although we've got some UI work and user generated content work to complete, see www.roadescapes.com. The things we focused on are the elements of journey planning that Goggle doesn't do at all. For instance, looking within 2-75 miles in the corridor of my trip itinerary on a multi-day journey for what I like to do (not what Google thinks I might like, or what I searched for yesterday).
  • I am wondering why we don't see in the travel market an Open Source cartography engine and dedicated application. Tools already exist since years....
  • Great article! Lots of useful new travel tools out there, including ours :)
    Our startup, GoPlanit, is all about helping you plan better trips quicker.

    We even have a feature which creates a custom trip itinerary at the click of a button, takes all of a few seconds (our recommendation algorithms get better with more info :)

    We just launched last year at TechCrunch50. Don't quite have the resources of a Google (who does?), but our tool can be quite complementary if not standalone. And re: the ability to book directly from the user generated plan - we do offer that as well. Please let us know how we can make your trip planning easier!
  • lindadimario
    The addition of any new online booking channel that sells destination travel and features the many dimensions of a destination is most welcome. However, only the official destination marketing organization knows the destination well enough to faithfully package the authentic "experience".
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