GOOGLE expanded its
travel offering at the
end of August with the
introduction of Flight Insights.
This new feature shows
travellers’ recommendations
and tips on how to make their
air travel more cost-effective.
Flight Insights suggests
variations in travel dates as
well as alternative airports,
highlighting the cheapest
and most expensive options.
This appears alongside an
estimated travel time between
various airports and the
destination to allow travellers to
weigh up whether the savings
are worth the distance.
When booking a flight from
Durban to Johannesburg for
example, Google will advise
travellers that a trip to Lanseria
could be more cost-effective. It
will even show Wonderboom as
an option.
The new Flight Insights
feature will also suggest the
cheapest day to travel if a
day before or after the date
that the traveller has entered
is cheaper. It will show the
airfares in a calendar format so
that selecting a cheaper travel
date is easy.
The new feature is currently
available on mobile and will roll
out to the desktop version later
this year.
This comes as the search
giant is increasingly positioning
itself in the eyes of the
consumer as an OTA such as
Expedia or Travelstart.
Over the last years, Google
has entered more and more
areas of the travel industry
through the introduction
of Google Flight Search,
Google Hotel Finder and the
optimisation of Google Maps
for hotel bookings. Destinations
on Google is a mobile platform
that offers itineraries put
together by an algorithm based
on online searches.
Google ramps up travel offering
Comments | 0
