It’s beginning to feel like a different era when Google
bought ITA Software in 2010 for $700 million.
The deal ignited anger across the travel industry (including
the launch of cross-company lobbying group FairSearch, featuring the likes of
Expedia and Kayak) and was subject to US regulatory approval.
With the acquisition approved in early-2011, Google set to
task on creating the Google Flights service later the same year – a launch that
it would be fair to say was met with barely a shrug of the shoulders by many at
the time, except perhaps for praise with which the speed of results were
returned to users.
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The international roll-out of Google Flights was slow by
steady, whilst new features were also added over time to give the front-end experience
some bells and whistles, many of which were variations on similar tools found
elsewhere.
This march towards providing flight metasearch to the Google
armoury of services coincided with the continued rise of its hotel platform.
In short: Google was gradually ramping up the core services in
the travel space in a way that many feared would happen – slowly but surely.
State of the nation
Fast forward to 2017, and it is worth taking stock on where
the company’s ambitions currently sit, at least in terms of their position
against other brands.
Phocuswright recently undertook a major project with
Jumpshot to cover four key aspects of the metasearch landscape in the US.
The results are very interesting.
Traffic
Unique monthly visits to Google Flights have more than
doubled in two years between the first halves of 2015 and 2017 (it passed Kayak
for the first time in the third quarter of 2015).
European hotel search brand Trivago (perhaps benefiting from
its TV-heavy brand campaign in the US in recent years) is ahead of Google in
Jumpshot’s index but, again, Google has overtaken Kayak this year. TripAdvisor is
leaps ahead of Trivago but traffic also accounts for those visiting just for
its reviews.
Referrals
Kayak leads the pack in flights in the number of leads
generated for partner sites (online travel agencies or airlines), yet Google
has once again stepped up in the last 12 months.
Hotels are a different picture entirely, with Google
maintaining a fairly flat presence following a fall in the second quarter of
2016. Yet, Trivago’s referrals are also down and Kayak’s are back where they
were two years ago.
Share of referrals
Google Flights sends most of its traffic direct to airline
websites (more than 80%), putting it at odds with Kayak which tends to flip the
other way and see around 70% of referrals head the way of online travel
agencies.
In hotels, online travel agencies generally benefit the most
from referrals in metasearch but Google has the largest share going to supplier
websites (around 20%).
Conversions
Referrals are one thing but what actually converts further
downstream is perhaps the most important metric, with Google Flights the clear leader
at a 25% rate and Kayak in the region of 8%.
Switch to hotel conversion rates and Kayak has leaped over
Google this year to score a 9% rate, compared to 8% for its rival.
So what does this all mean?
Google does, arguably, propose an ongoing risk to online
travel agencies and fellow metasearch engines.
Travel metasearch: Just Google It
This is demonstrated in data that shows the number of
travel-related keywords that trigger the inclusion of Google products in search
results.
Google Flights captures a 45% share of traffic to those
keywords in the first half of 2017 (up marginally from 43% in the same period
in 2016), compared to 31% for airline websites and 24% to online travel
agencies.
Perhaps most interestingly is the recent surge in traffic
share to hotel-related keywords, with Google Hotels jumping from 19% in 2016 to
28% in the first six months of 2017.
A similar rate of growth will see it pass online travel
agencies (currently at 30%) during 2018.
See below for a presentation of the results from The Phocuswright Conference 2017.
Travel Metasearch - Just Google It?