Let’s be honest, who do not like going on a holiday? Backpacking in Central-America, Asia or Australia, but also a city trip in Europe, it sounds attracting to me. Going on a holiday should be fun and not causes stress. However when I am on a holiday I have my flight and hotel information somewhere across emails and printed papers. Besides that last summer I used 8 different applications, like TripAdvisor, Hostelworld and Googlemaps in planning my trip and 2 different lonely planet’s. Still the lonely planet’s and all this apps do not satisfy all my needs, something that I experienced was the lack of apps that can be used offline, as I am too greedy to pay extra for Internet when I am abroad. So the use of multiple apps, and the lack of apps that can be used offline causes stress and in my opinion, that should not happen during a holiday.
Apparently I am not the only one that faces this problem and therefore Google tries to tackle this by launching their new app; Google Trips. The app is only launched on the 19th of September and is the new kid in the market of travel apps. But can Google Trips differentiate itself from their competitors? They try to get most solutions in one app and make it possible that travellers do not have to go through the hassle of toggling between different apps, printouts or travel guides with all the travel information or different notes with saved recommendations from friends. The strongest point of this app is that you have all your travel info in one place – with access to it even without having access to the Internet.
The app pulls all the travel data from your Gmail including flight and hotel reservations and the necessary contact information. So if you buy a flight ticket, or make a reservation for a hotel a new trip will be created in the app. For 200 cities across the world, recommended day trips are created, but also customized trips can be made. All highlights of a city are showed on a map and you can pin this places, then a route will be created and also visiting times, open or close status and charges will be showed. Not only the top spots can be found in the app, but also restaurants and bars including ratings and reviews. Places that you are interested in can be saved. Also general information about a city and how to get around can be found in the app.
According PhoCusWright the global travel is a $1.3-trillion industry (2014). The industry is rapidly growing as well moving online, and therefore it is understandable that Google try to enter this market. It is not the first attempt of Google to enter the travel market, but I am not sure if this attempt will be the game changer. I see the need for one place where you can find all travel information and therefore can reduce the number of apps that are needed during a holiday. As Google has a lot of information available, you expect them to serve in this need. However, the possibility to plan day trips is only available for 200 cities, and only a few number of restaurants and bars are reviewed in the app. Also the app falls short in one of the crucial steps between planning and the actual trips – bookings. Customers cannot make bookings within the app and therefore still should use other apps.
So, there is a need for one place where all information that is relevant for your holiday can be found. Thereby it is an advantage when you can use the app offline, but the added value of this will decrease as roaming charges in Europe will be abolished by June 2017. In my opinion Google Trips does not satisfy the need of bring all relevant information for planning a holiday in one place. However the app has some advantages, and therefore next holiday I will probably use 2 lonely planet’s and 9 apps instead of 8.
References:
http://marketrealist.com/2016/09/google-trips-could-it-be-googles-breakthrough-in-the-online-travel-space/
http://newsmonkey.be/article/71457
https://get.google.com/trips/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/19/12943054/google-trips-travel-app-android-ios
http://www.phocuswright.com/Free-Travel-Research/Travel-Innovation-and-Technology-Trends-2015
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/21/european-commision-mobile-phone-roaming-charges-telecoms