Google Unveils Travel Insights Tools To Aid With Travel Recovery

Google recently hosted a webinar titled, “Travel On Air- Product Takeover: New Tools To Help Travel Recovery.” The online seminar took an in-depth look at trends within the travel industry, highlighted leaders across the travel industry, and introduced a set of tools based on real-time travel demand and Google search data dubbed Travel Insights with Google.

Google revealed that search queries such as “where to travel”, “is it safe to travel,” and “where to vacation” are at an all-time high in search volume. Due to this positive increase in travel-related searches and the industry’s need for more actionable insights, Google created the Travel Insights with Google tools in partnership with HSMAI and Destinations International.

These partners are leading travel industry experts and provided their perspectives on the travel industry’s recovery during the webinar. Bob Gilbert, President and CEO of HSMAI, was confident in travel recovery stating, “The good news is that the growth opportunities for hotels and for sales, marketing and revenue professionals will witness unprecedented growth over the next few years—demand will rebound, consumer behavior will change and the social norm globally aspires to travel.” 

Jack Johnson, Chief Advocacy Officer of Destinations International, was also hopeful for the future and the need for travel data as well, commenting, “We see the economy rebounding, we see the sentiment for travel there, and in all honesty, I don’t think we will ever be as important as we will be in the next couple of years.” Their work with Google helped create two tools for Travel Insights with Google: Destination Insights and Hotel Insights.

The Destination Insights tool helps users analyze the travel market and identify travel trends based on domestic and international demand. It explores how this demand is changing and compares year over year data. 

The tool has features, including:

Geographic Demand: Looks at top demand by destination area, country and city.

Demand Growth: Showcases the slow to rapid growth of destination over a selected time range

Origins of Demand: Monitors incoming demand based on your selected location 

Flight and Accommodation Demand Sizing: Allows advertisers to compare up to ten countries to better understand inbound and outbound travel interests.

Destination Insights uses accommodation and air searches on Google to adjust data based on volatility. The insights provided offer a much broader look at travel trends compared to Hotel Insights, though it is a great tool for comparing trends across regions by using recent travel search data.

Hotel Insights is Google’s second travel recovery tool, which helps marketers better understand visitor demands and acquire new guests based on insights. The tool uses accommodation searches from Google to help search marketers capitalize on fluctuation and seasonality while breaking down booking trends. 

After selecting a market, Hotel Insights presents a list of helpful items, such as:

Overall domestic versus international demand

Search interest for both domestic and international markets

The top five inbound markets by the share of searches and their year over year change

Searches from around the world that allow advertisers to see interest from country to country

Hotel Insights also provides resources to help advertisers achieve their business goals, such as ensuring hotels are showing up in Google search results, as well as tips for getting more guests booked and recommendations for ways to provide a five-star website experience. 

Watch the webinar and learn more about how these tools help with travel recovery on Google’s Ads on Air website.