Okay, so we now know plenty about Google, ITA Software and that acquisition story. But is it important?
Yes, of course it is. What Google does, matters. However, we seem to be missing the long-term picture. Google is mainly great at keyword based search.
But will keyword based search be the dominant search form in 20 years? Ten years? Five years even? Doubt it.
Mobile search is much more about location. Ecommerce search will be much more about your social connections and their experience with the same product.
If I am still typing in keywords in five years time I consider that as bad as travel agents still typing in cryptic command line messages for flight/hotel bookings. (And, yes, I understand the efficiency argument about an expert using a concise well matured language).
What is the alternative to keyword search? Well one step forward is destination/travel date based search. Not exactly a UI panacea but probably more useful than a keyword based research query in terms of pitching back destination inspiration ideas or available travel product.
Yet, Google is not winning that game. In fact it is not even playing in it. The game has changed and it is Bing with its Farecast acquisition just 16 months ago which is playing the game of converting mainstream searches from keyword based search to destination/date based.
Is that 16 month head start sufficient? Will Bing have built sufficient knowledge to be able to fend off any Google-ITA mainstream solution?
It’s a big question. I don’t have the answer. What I am sure though is that Google have a fight on their hands and they are not first to market. In that situation regulators are bound to give them the green light.
If Google ultimately lose the battle (such as it has with book ecommerce moving to consumers searching on Amazon first) then I believe they will regret the five year period between 2005 and 2010 where it basically squandered a lead.
Can you name a single big innovation in travel search that Google has delivered to market in the last five years? Nope.
Oddly, Expedia is making noises about the Google-ITA Software deal expressing concerns to the US Justice Department.
But Expedia is actually in the same boat as Google. Expedia has also squandered a leading travel search position. Compare for example this 2003 hotel search result to a 2010 version.
2003
2010
Remarkably similar, although the Expedia quality rating has been replaced with a user generated one and wireless has trumped breakfast!
What both Expedia and Google have achieved is the fallacy of the local maximum.
They have both made brilliant efficiencies on their core UI design. Undeniable. However, alternatives now exist that are fundamentally different and none of this will be uncovered by A/B testing that just sandpapers existing approaches.
[NB: Expedia continues to keep the faith, as Dan Lynn, managing director of Expedia Asia-Pacific, told a conference in Sydney this week: "Whenever we A/B test, consumers confirm that the typical layout of OTA is the right one"]
The tortoises are just building up momentum and could overtake the hare.
About Alex Bainbridge
Wouldn’t the evolution of Google Maps during the past 5 years constitute a big innovation in travel search? Maybe not the exact definition of “search” you’re using above, but still…
It might be more understandable that Google hasn’t introduced anything truly innovative in travel the past five years but for the world’s largest OTA to basically just rearrange the furniture and repaint some rooms around the house is more disappointing. No wonder then that consumers express frustration and disappointment with the overall online travel research and buying experience. Sure, I can get airfare options sliced and diced and presented in oh so many ways and hotels, as shown above, with reviews and photos – btw, did I miss the video? – but this is after I’ve probably spent hours all over the web trying to find the most suitable destination for me to visit.
A lot remains to be done, for travel tech people to make the process from inspiration to booking a seamless and especially fun experience for the customer. What will Google do? We shall see.
Alex, you make a very good point.
I agree that evolution like touchscreen devices, location-based info, and destinaiton/date-based search will all play a role in trasnforming what we now call travel search.
Imagine what Google/ITA could do as they combine ITA’s assets (flight database, Needle, etc.) with some of its other assets, like Google Maps, Street View, YouTube, etc. We’re not there yet, and Google obviously needs to take action lest others beat it.
Keyword search may remaina part of the mix, but Google (and others) must continue to push forward in UI and search options to remain viable five years from now.
@henry – thanks for chiming in
As we’ve pointed out, ITA is testing hotels as well.
http://www.tnooz.com/2010/07/12/news/google-ita-software-deal-ita-has-been-working-on-hotels/
Endless possibilities? Perhaps…
But as Alex points out, Google’s core product is keyword search and hasn’t really pushed on from there yet.
I tend to agree with the comments on slow incremental enhancements vs radical different approaches, however there is one fundamental difference: scale.
Where these big guys are today, shifting to radically different solutions is complex and can be expensive if not done well. It’s much easier for the big guys to let others innovate, get to a decently scalable level, and then buy them to take them mainstream. Exactly what Google did with ITA (let alone, aquiring a team who understands travel complexity).
The case where it’s the small innovative guy who silently scales up without getting into anyone’s radar screen is relatively rare.
Paradoxically, Google is one example. And the OTA themselves another example – if we consider that the previous brick and mortar agents have just watched them grow and dominate.
Personally, I have been looking closely at Google’s voice search and recognition capabilities as they pertain to travel search, and the results are more advanced that I actually expected.
Since voice search is now embedded directly into the Android UI, Google has the opportunity as consumers adopt voice search to create voice objects from spoken terms such as “flight”, “Seattle”, June 25th”, “4-star hotel”, and with direct integration with ITA’s data structure, deliver perhaps even a matrix of flight, hotel, and other results directly to the mobile device screen.
When you search by voice for say, a flight from Seattle to San Francisco, the results translate quite well, and the word error rate I’ve found on a fairly sizable sample is lower than I expected and will continue to improve, whereas a service such as Vlingo was worse than I expected.
If Google and ITA do create this platform, it can produce something like metasearch directly to suppliers, and there is much less of a leg to stand on for OTA’s and such to object – the advertising space in voice-based search is essentially undeveloped.
Perhaps Google can appease PC/web search advertisers by staying away from a true metasearch on that platform, but in my mind, the voice platform is a whole new ballgame, and fair game for Google to invest and compete in. In fact, it’s not at all anti-competitive – it’s exactly what competition should be and Google spent the money to create Android and advance voice recognition, so why shouldn’t it be able to reap rewards?
Though in the neophyte stage, if consumers do trend toward voice-based search, OTA’s or whomever certainly have been free to invest in it themselves, but I wonder if a consumer would want to download an OTA app when the Android search module is right in front of them?
by the way, Ruba was basically bought for its data structure and content, so perhaps that fits right into a voice-search strategy as well!
Much more to this of course based on information I’ve gathered, but I haven’t heard it mentioned yet. Any thoughts?
@jonathan – you really think Ruba was bought for its content?
Of all the travel content sites out there, Google chose Ruba?
I’m not so sure…
If anything, as we’ve mused before, Ruba was bought for its interesting tour operating/activities meta platform, nothing else.
here’s our earlier story:
http://www.tnooz.com/2010/08/02/news/ruba-shuts-website-ten-weeks-after-sale-to-google/
not content such as articles and reviews – the content/information associated with the data structure for activities and such that produces the results. They get the flight and likely hotel info via ITA, the activity/tour structure via Ruba, and the general local-services platform is already in place to a good degree…
It seems this would be a good reason to shut down the public Ruba site – focus on integrating the structured data…
just a thought…
Google will not lose the battle in online travel. While it is true that mobile is increasingly about location, and ecommerce increasingly about social, neither of these contribute to one of the key questions in travel planning; what is the price?
Recommendations will never replace the basic need to compare prices. Nor will location-based overhaul the booking timeline; travelers will still book ahead of their trip, not when they walk around in their destination city, exceptions aside.
Fact is that Google holds more cards than any other player to win this game, regardless of what shape the travel planning process takes. Jonathan Alford above gives a smart example of what to expect in the near future.
In addition, Google did not ‘lose the battle’ against Amazon. Amazon around way before Google. Amazon launched in 1995. Google was only incorporated as a company in 1998. By that time, Amazon was already an established player and had already IPO’d.
Asking “what has Google ever innovated for us?” misses the point.
Google’s model is to improve on something which already exists. Search engines were around long before Google (Altavista, Infoseek etc) but Google did it better. Keyword advertising was around before Google but Google did it better. Auctions were around before Google, but Google did them better. Online maps were around before Google, but Google does them better (and by that time, was in a position to give Google Maps a plum spot on the search page, elbowing MapQuest into the hinterland.)
Dan
The point I was making is that, in the words of Henry Ford, Google have been great at creating faster horses….
I think it’s wrong to think of online travel as a single sector awaiting a silver bullet. Within travel there are many distinct types of consumer query. For example:
* destination inspiration (“Where should I go on holiday?”)
* price comparison (“Who is cheapest?”)
* mobile inspiration (“Where shall we eat out tonight?”)
* mobile information (“What time is the last train home?”)
and so on…
There is probably room for many dominant players. But as to the best-placed company to dominate travel search, it’s hard at present to see beyond Google.
Alex B – another perspective to consider is thinking about Google as a platform for others to innovate in the travel space – like http://www.3dhawaii.com which uses Earth to create rich destination based searches. Five years from now I’d expect Google will still be helping us sort through the data we want to see but it will also include our social data. Your thoughts?
Given Google is already making the most from profit from Travel without any of the operational hassles of being an OTA you may wonder why they would want to enter the travel space.
The answer for me is simple…..The internet has commoditised travel and the next logical route must be price comparison. Google search is actually a relatively poor experience for customers with the average UK customer having to / wanting to visit 23 sites before booking. Hence Google know that although they are can fill their boots with travel income at the moment unless they evolve they are going to get cut out. Hence ITA….but if my logic is right they should be developing price comparison PPC or CPA models not OTA.
Views please?
Steve
Steve, if the average holiday maker is looking at 23 sites (these stats always seem high to me – I don’t know 23 sites I’d want to check!) then a Google search is likely to have occured at some point. Presenting a bookable option alongside sponsored links (if this is the way) looks like a positive action – why divert sales off to another site if there’s a commission to earn? And if they do go elsewhere, thank you for the cost of a click!
I think you’re bang on as far as Google sitting prettiest in profit making within travel but they have lost ground of late
with even Microsoft getting their act together and having Bing dent Google’s dominance. As stated above if keyword search gives way to destination/date based search terms then Google will need to become more nimble.
As you say they’re going to need to invest to cope with the hassles of being an OTA, but $700m for ITA shows they mean business.
Regards
Graeme