There are a number of pieces missing from the Google travel jigsaw. So far its focus has been on data-driven services – Maps, Flight Search, Hotel Finder, Places and the ubiquitous click-based advertising.
These services have all been good, but they are much like getting travel advice from a white-shirted accountant. Good, solid, reliable information but very flat and uninspiring.
What makes you want to go to a place to begin with? When you have chosen a place – what makes you want to explore further? The inspiration phase of leisure trip planning research has been by far the hardest for tech-based services to master.
Google has announced (and started sending out Beta invites to) a new service, known as Schemer, which attempts to compete in this gap.
Effectively it is local destination ideas based on tips from your (Google+) friends, celebrities (oh yes!) and professional destination content producers (ie. travel writers).
It uses content with the likes of Zagat, the review service it purchased in September this year.
From first look there doesn’t seem to be any commercialising of these experiences (nothing has an obvious price or is bookable) but it is as yet unlaunched and booking would be easy enough to add on later.
The travel industry companies most at risk from this move by Google are the 30 or so nascent person to person (P2P) tour guide marketplaces (that I reviewed back in September).
Many of these P2P services are based on individuals providing and consuming interesting destination experiences together.
With Google already having a Google+ social profile acting as the central glue, Schemer could move into this P2P tour guide area as the user could essentially see who it is booking from (and build trust).
Tie that in with Google Checkout and you have a powerful combination which most existing P2P tour guide marketplaces would struggle to compete with.
The second group of companies at risk from this move by Google is, well, everyone else.
If destination research moves to starting at Google Schemer rather than Google Search, then Google will be able to pitch flights, hotels and other travel services, without having to necessarily work within the confines of their existing web properties.
We are a long way from this though, of course – the service is yet to fully launch 
Here is a walk-through by a writer from TheNextWeb:
And Google’s own, rather peculiar introduction to the service:
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About Alex Bainbridge
Google scares again with a rush job Trip Advisor
Nice one Alex! Finger on the pulse as always
This is so interesting and you’re right that companies in this space need to be aware of the potential risk, but with risk comes opportunity – what better market validation than for Google to come slap bang into this space?
Looking forward to more interesting debates about this on Tnooz in 2012!
Hi Alex,
Nice post. Google’s recent switch to powering their own maps is heading towards the inspirational as well. OS Explorer and the Harvey BMM maps have always been great to use for discovering stuff and Google seem to be moving in that direction. What you can do with 44% of the world’s digital ad spend at your disposal …
James
Looks like more and more pieces of the Google jigsaw are starting to fit together, or at least take shape. They are inserting themselves in the inspiration and planning process which in my opinion is smart as they will be able to then close the gap with the actual booking, something others are lacking as they either are in one or the other but not in both. Interesting to follow the development.
Hi Joe
Yes – slight danger (which I may have fallen into) of reading more into things than actually exist (ha, wouldn’t be the first time) – but yes it does begin to look like a few pieces of the jigsaw are coming together.
Now, if you see this coming and you think Google are coming towards you, what is your best commercial reaction? Is it to create a missing piece of the jigsaw? Or what do you do? Think that will be a good ponder for another time! I know what I would do…..
Think Google had to build this jigsaw piece due to its tight integration with Google+….. but this doesn’t mean they will build every piece of the jigsaw…
Hi Alex,
Seeing more than is there – that’s also called vision, right? Some have more than others
You’re asking a good question about how to respond to their initiatives. The strategy depends on your own position v. Google. For a smaller competitor, building a key piece they’re missing seems to me a possibility (potential acquisition by Google can be a good thing, right!). If you’re FB you likely take them head on as they already do.
Google has a culture of constantly trying new stuff, throw it at the wall and see what sticks. This could be another one of those efforts but anything that enhances the Google+ experience probably gets key support as G+ looks like one thing they are betting heavily on.
I’ve long believed Google was planning to use ITA Software to power a booking engine for the full spectrum of travel activities. Today, we go to separate websites to purchase different goods and services: Orbitz for travel, Amazon for physical goods, etc. Google has a different view: we use our phones to purchase anything.
We’ve seen recent proof that Google ventures like Boutiques.com and Wedding Planner have been used to pitch Google’s e-commerce capabilities to bricks and mortar retailers from Office Depot to Macys. I believe Schemer will be used similarly, as a vision piece to show travel companies how Google/ITA enables anytime/anywhere purchases.
“Up, up, and away!” indeed.
Article on how Boutiques.com has been used to pitch Google’s ecommerce:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204012004577072323400561792.html#ixzz1fOkvcyWp
My earlier comments about ITA and Google:
http://www.tnooz.com/2011/04/08/news/google-ita-software-deal-approved-by-us-authorities-with-conditions/#comment-638064
Great piece, Alex!
Excellent article
I am sitting on this idea for several years
My idea is to build a system for building sophisticated routes.
For this purpose, I built a database site reached 6.5 million points of interest in tourism. Most of the experiments of writing information in Hebrew because I became speaker of this language more easy to me.
The site has approximately 335 classifications, two in Hebrew and English platforms and supports 65 languages ​​writing.
Now at the stage of writing the optimal system for the construction of Route
I know and I understand that the site you see does not display the site to show users who want to travel. But serves as introduction for the tour guides, stakeholders, business partners and others, according to this information will build route
I’d love to hear ideas for win-win cooperation from
Hmm… at first – no more net fares from airlines, then miles brokers have jumped into travel industry, then ITA acquisition, now everyone is selling travel…I’m about to lose my business. Any advice?
It looks to me like an attempt to get into social gamification, or Google’s own take on FourSquare.
Not an obvious relationship with travel. Startup OneFeat has a similar idea.