Last week we had the announcement from Google that they had reached an agreement to acquire ITA, a travel reservations software company based in Boston, for $700 million. At this stage Google are only entering the flights market, with ITA only focusing on airlines, not hotels or car hire. But flights are the perfect stepping stone into the travel market, and Google will already be thinking of the next move.
ITA are behind the reservation systems for many major airlines globally, but what’s interesting, is that Bing Travel also relies on the software, and so Google will now own the booking infrastructure of one of its biggest competitors travel product.
So what does this mean for all the travel destination sites and aggregators? Although flights may only be part of their offering, it will only be a matter of time surely before Google decide to partner with or purchase a Hotel comparison site. However, flights as a product is fairly straight forward, you want to fly from A to B, and have a choice of three classes, so give me a price. Hotels is a very different proposition altogether. Whilst you could argue it still comes down to price, it has many different factors that contribute to the decision making. What type of room? What’s the service like? Is it value for money? What leisure facilities are available?
Hotels reviews are a crucial part of the booking process, and should always be based on the opinions of consumers and experts. Whilst Google may be able to provide a comparison of the best prices, the value add is the review and information about the experience of staying in the hotel that ultimately contributes to the decision to go ahead an book the room.
Google is a search engine, not a comparison engine. They have shown already, they can roll out products in other markets very easily, such as the recent credit cards comparison, but they are not a brand you would associate with finance products. The same goes for travel, they may well be able to compete on flights, as it is a very straight forward offering with little differences in the flight product to choose from apart from price. But again they lack the travel brand behind them, and whilst they may be able to offer the same prices as Expedia or Sky Scanner, they will always struggle to bring with it the confidence and peace of mind that leading travel brands have spent years building.