Google Makes a Pitch at the Recovery of the Travel Industry
Google is rolling out Travel Insights with Google, a website the tourism industry worldwide can use to understand travel demand and make better-informed decisions. It’s built around three new tools and even though it’s primarily targeting the Asia Pacific region, the high-tech giant says it could be used all over the world in days to come.
Destination Insights
One of the key things travel businesses, governments and tourism boards are looking for is information about the destinations travellers are searching for in different places around the world—and domestically.
The Destination Insights tool will give them a clear picture of the top sources of demand for a destination, and the destinations within their countries that travelers are most interested in visiting—helping them map out a possible resumption of travel on specific routes and make choices about where to communicate with potential future travelers.
Hotel Insights
There are still millions of Google searches for hotels every day, which allows us to generate extensive insights about demand for hotel bookings. We're now making it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to understand where demand for their property may be coming from by providing them with these insights directly. Hotel Insights is designed to help hotels of all sizes—but especially small and independent hotels—understand how to target their marketing as they plan their recovery.
Travel Analytics Center
The Travel Analytics Center—available to Google’s commercial partners in the travel sector—will enable organizations to combine their own Google account data with broader Google demand data and insights, giving them a clearer picture of how to manage their operations and find opportunities to reach potential visitors.
The message from tourism organizations is that they want as much information as possible to move quickly when restrictions ease and people begin booking travel.
In addition to the three new tools, the site will be a one-stop location for other industry resources, including skills training through Grow with Google, Digital Garage and Google for Small Business, and resources from the UNWTO.
“Since the pandemic first hit, we’ve been focused on helping businesses and sharing information so people feel safe when they travel. Now, as we head into 2021, we hope to work even more closely with the industry as borders begin to open up, domestic travel increases, and international travel becomes possible again. No matter how quickly or slowly that recovery takes place, we’re committed to supporting global travel and tourism and the many people and businesses that depend on it,” Google says on its blog.
