Image by Alain Bachellier

Approximately 30% of web traffic related to travel is channelled through Google.  Travel is the most searched for category on Google.  So it’s not surprising then that the giants of search are especially keen to help travel companies (and ultimately their clients) to figure out how to navigate their way successfully through the economic crisis.  [This crisis, according to EuroMonitor, has affected the travel industry worse than the aftermath of September 11th]

On Tuesday 1st December Google held ‘Travel Think 09′ where a couple of hundred industry leaders in the travel sector were invited for a day with Google and others to share insights and ideas for the future of travel.

I was proud to be invited to speak on their panel entitled “Innovate to Capture Consumers”, alongside Marko Balabanovic of Lastminute, Paul Kemp-Robertson of Contagious Magazine and Fergus Boyd of Virgin Atlantic. Richard Seymour (of Channel Four “Better by Design” fame) chaired the panel which drew on some key themes about current innovation in travel:

• Consumers no longer want to have to visit lots of separate sites to fulfill a search for travel – they want to have relevant results served up to them from a single place [Enter Zoombu; helping people to search "from A to B" instead of having to look for a flight, Eurostar, train, bus, or driving directions in many different places and piece search results together by hand]
• Mobile and location based services are becoming ever more important to travellers who are armed with iphones and the like.  Augmented reality apps are becoming popular to assist travellers on the move
• Established brands need to engage with new and innovative concepts and companies in order to keep up with consumers and ultimately to survive
• Power and knowledge is now in the hands of the consumer and not the brand, thanks to the wealth of real-time, social and search apps

Other speakers included Google’s UK MD Matt Brittin, Tamer Tamar, President of eBookers and Danny Barrasso, Head of eCommerce at Hilton and a fascinating talk by Ben Schott (writer of Schott’s Almanac).  The event was held in the Royal Geographical Society, which is arguably the most significant institute of travel and exploration in the UK having supported such famous names as Livingstone, Stanley, Scott, Shackleton, Hunt and Hillary.

Thanks to Google for inviting me along.

- Posted by Rachel