Post by ivykhan885 on Mar 10, 2024 4:36:21 GMT
Once upon a time there was a search engine with OTA aspirations . A giant from Mountain View that, step by step, feature after feature, was eroding space and market shares of online travel agencies, hotels and chains, flight and rental holiday companies. That giant was called – and still is – Google and in 2015 it launched Book on Google, with the aim of swallowing up many travel players, across the board. But that ambition soon clashes with reality if today the abolition of the Book on Google service for flights is announced, after the same unfortunate fate had befallen, at the beginning of 2022 , the similar function dedicated to hotel reservations. Users decreasing As Skift reports , Google has announced that it will shut down the Book on Google for flights service for users outside the US at the end of September 2022, while the feature will go offline for US users after March 31, 2023. The reason for such a decision.
- which sounds a bit like a defeat - lies in the decline in users who booked their flights directly on Google. Looking at the numbers, the search engine recognized that travelers prefer to book flights on OTA or airline sites. “Over the next 12 months, we plan to phase out the Book on Google feature for flights ,” the company said in a statement. “We initially offered this feature to give people an easier way to purchase Australia Telegram Number Data tickets and to help our partner airlines and OTAs get more bookings. However, we have found over time that people actually want to book directly on partner websites and we always strive to accommodate user preferences whenever possible . " In short, a defeat masked by the best intentions of listening to its audience. Doesn't it sound like that? History of an emulation? Some travel experts, with whom we align ourselves, saw Book on Google as a decisive position taken by Google, which aimed to emulate methods of use and conversion of OTAs.
Yet, such a giant cannot afford to make a single false step, especially without having taken into account the profits. In fact, Google earns a lot, too much money from advertising campaigns in the travel sector: it would be stupid to think of competing with its major partners. Furthermore, Big G has no interest in handling flight changes and cancellations or providing customer service to stranded (and furious) travelers at the airport. When it launched in 2015, Book on Google marketed itself as a way to facilitate bookings for airlines and online travel agencies in an era where many of their mobile sites were not optimized for a high-performance booking process. But since then things have changed a lot, airlines and OTAs have equipped themselves with developers and technologies such that their sites are perfectly navigable on all devices. This evolution on the partner side corresponded to a decline in flight bookings coming from.
- which sounds a bit like a defeat - lies in the decline in users who booked their flights directly on Google. Looking at the numbers, the search engine recognized that travelers prefer to book flights on OTA or airline sites. “Over the next 12 months, we plan to phase out the Book on Google feature for flights ,” the company said in a statement. “We initially offered this feature to give people an easier way to purchase Australia Telegram Number Data tickets and to help our partner airlines and OTAs get more bookings. However, we have found over time that people actually want to book directly on partner websites and we always strive to accommodate user preferences whenever possible . " In short, a defeat masked by the best intentions of listening to its audience. Doesn't it sound like that? History of an emulation? Some travel experts, with whom we align ourselves, saw Book on Google as a decisive position taken by Google, which aimed to emulate methods of use and conversion of OTAs.
Yet, such a giant cannot afford to make a single false step, especially without having taken into account the profits. In fact, Google earns a lot, too much money from advertising campaigns in the travel sector: it would be stupid to think of competing with its major partners. Furthermore, Big G has no interest in handling flight changes and cancellations or providing customer service to stranded (and furious) travelers at the airport. When it launched in 2015, Book on Google marketed itself as a way to facilitate bookings for airlines and online travel agencies in an era where many of their mobile sites were not optimized for a high-performance booking process. But since then things have changed a lot, airlines and OTAs have equipped themselves with developers and technologies such that their sites are perfectly navigable on all devices. This evolution on the partner side corresponded to a decline in flight bookings coming from.