Search giant Google told the Trip.com Airline Global Conference that airline must adapt as travel search becomes more visual, more conversational and more personalised.
In a keynote address at this week’s event in Amsterdam, Joff Romoff, Google’s global head – travel and hospitality, set out what it is seeing in terms of merging trends.
He told the aviation delegates that we are at an “exciting time” and that organisations that are adopting AI are “seeing fantastic results”.
“First and foremost, what we’re seeing is distribution is moving left. It’s going from discovery to transaction,” said Romoff.
“And that’s not entirely surprising in terms of the marketplace and just the technology that’s out there.
“What is super surprising is that 15% of the travel searches that we’re seeing we’ve never seen before. Why is that the case?
“It really comes down to what the prompts are, the number of words, the conversational commerce element of travel today.
“And that is driving all of this information and taking that distribution channel from discovery to transactions. We see that evolving, we see that growing. We see it getting bigger.
“And it kind of makes a lot of sense. The traveller today is a digital native. They’re incredibly visual. They want information right away.
Romoff said in-destination activities now are the top search category as people look for things to do along with the accommodation that they want.
“The one thing that’s kind of interesting is the air portion of it is actually growing at the lowest number versus destination services. What does that tell you?
“It tells you that there’s probably some sort of need to start to evolve as an industry in terms of what we’re offering, or work with organisations that do that.
“It’s telling us that there’s a massive shift of what people are searching, what they’re interested in. And that makes a lot of sense because of who’s doing all of the search.
“What we’re finding is people are overwhelmed by travel search. There’s so much information coming their way that they’re trying to make sense of it, get through it.
“But at the same time, they want personalisation. And so the ability to balance that, the need to do that, is super hard, and it continues to evolve through various AI functions.”
Romoff added: “Google is still largely the place where people come for search and inspiration.
“The OTAs are very strong second, and that’s obviously because of the investment in natural language and agentic.
“YouTube is the third highest area where people get inspiration for travel, which makes sense in light of the fact of who’s looking at it.
“And then number four…is mapping. People are looking at maps a lot to get inspiration in terms of where they’re going.
“We’ve become a massively visual society. And there’s a lot of speculation of whether the likes of YouTube or any of the other platforms become distribution channels.”
Google is experimenting with creating bespoke itineraries for users based on video content, added Romoff.
Alaska Airlines was cited as an airline that has seen success using 3D mapping to show its customer what sort of experience they can expect before they travel.
“As a result of that, they’ve taken out the friction and put the joy back in travel planning and reduced the complications,” said Romoff.
And there’s also an opportunity for dynamic pricing tailored to customer sentiment who are purchasing multiple products related to a destination.
Romoff said this trend is “going to push both revenue management and the ancillary side of the business into a very different direction”.
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