Google Travel Insights: What They Say & How To Use Them Effectively?

Towards the end of 2020, Google came to the aid of the ailing travel industry with rich insights that unlock the mysteries of travel demand.

Since its inception, Google Travel Insights has become a go-to resource for astute hotel marketers wanting to understand guest behaviour patterns and trends to inform their strategy.

What does Google Travel Insights include?

Google Travel Insights includes tools and data that intended to help travel businesses, including hoteliers, develop a deeper understanding of current levels of demand for travel, see how this demand is evolving over time, pinpoint exactly where demand for travel is coming from, and view key performance data and analytics from a single access point.

Based on travel-related searches on the tech giant’s flagship search engine, the insights provided by Google are valuable to inform marketing strategies, particularly at a point in time where travel demand has been unpredictable due to the pandemic and all past data models on travel trends being questioned in the new post-pandemic setting.

There are three main components of Google Travel Insights:

1. Destination Insights, primarily providing current and historic level of demand for all destinations, looking at both domestic and international travel.
2. Hotel Insights home in on accommodation search data to provide property owners with insights on what travellers are looking for from their stay.
3. Google Travel Analytics Centre is available for registered Google Travel Partners where the Insights data can be combined with the partner’s own data to provide unique insights.

How to use Google Insights?

Visit https://travelinsights.withgoogle.com/intl/en/. Toggle to Destination or Hotel Insights. Filter by your region and away you go finding travel trends

What the insight are saying for current destination and hotel trends?

1. Travel searches, both domestic and global, are holding steady at good volume.  The Asia Pacific Region (APAC) saw strong double-digit growth between the first and second quarters of this year. Hotel searches are catching up to campaign and vacation rental searches globally.
2. Search windows are on average shorter. Searches in the 0-90 day window before prospective travel increased globally by more than 5%. The 61-90 day window showed the largest lift at 15%.  This is valuable information to consider when looking at your forward bookings and planning your marketing.
3. Demand is remaining strong despite the impacts of inflation and rising costs.
4. Inclusive travel has a strong focus.  Many consumers would choose a destination lodging that they considered was more inclusive of all types of travellers, even if it’s more expensive.
5. Focus on comfort, convenience and longer stays while social distancing is still top of mind as health and hygiene remain strong parameters to choose the place guests stay.
6. Less physical, more contactless service is preferred. Contactless check-in, payment and booking of amenities is preferred. Virtual tours and voice control are gaining traction, as is recognition technology.
7. Bleisure (business + leisure) travel are in as work trips are extended into short breaks to make the most of a travel opportunity.

To sum it up

Google Travel Insights forms part of the wider Google offering and is intended to be used by those involved in areas like travel, tourism and hospitality. It provides businesses, marketers and Google partners with valuable insights into the current demand for travel, allowing trends to be identified and more strategic decisions to be made.

Have you been using Google Insights to inform your strategy? Tell us about it at marketing@stahh.com. We’d love to hear all about!

This post originally appeared on the STAAH website and is reproduced with their permission.