We announced to you last April (see our post) what Google “incubated” a new service allowing you to select and reserve activities and leisure activities in a given destination. That's it ! TouringBird has just launched with over 25.000 activities and leisure activities bookable in the 20 main tourist cities in the world. The giant hears, eventually, cover all tourist destinations on the planet …
We keep saying it (and write it down !), activities and leisure activities are “new frontier” online travel giants (Booking, AirBnB, Expedia, TripAdvisor …). Not only, this market is estimated at a few 200 Billions of $ per year, more, the most important, is that activities are also an excellent way to sell accommodation (on a given place) or to constitute an excellent additional income when a customer has reserved their vacation rental or hotel (ex: What if you book your bike rental or museum entry now ?..). This is why the giants (OTAs) and Google make it a priority in their developments 2019.
TouringBird was imagined and developed in the famous Aera120, Google's in-house incubator in which its employees (and a few privileged guests) have the opportunity to test new projects and develop them for commercialization purposes “grand public”.
TouringBird was born from the idea that if travelers could now find their next vacation accommodation very easily, booking activities and leisure was a slightly more complicated operation : how to navigate the mass of offers available on the internet and, Above all, how to immediately find offers that can be booked directly online? Because this is the challenge of TouringBird: make immediately visible the offers which are immediately bookable ! As we know, if there is a mass of leisure in the world, few are already bookable 100% online…
The design of TouringBird is very refined, in the style of AirBnB. Normal ! The ambition of the new Google entity is to do as well or better than AirBnB in the field of “experiences”. D’ailleurs, by claiming the figure of 25.000 experiences already gathered, Google also wants to show that its “catalogue” is already as important as that offered by AirBnB. To get there, Google has aggregated the offers of many operators like Viator (TripAdvisor), Expedia, GetYourGuide, etc … and announces the opening of its platform to new local operators to extend its reach to other tourist territories on the planet. Et, Thus, multiplier (otherwise overtake AirBnB in the sale of) experiences.
Because under this generic theme, both sum up the very essence of online travel : live an experience. And this begins from the act of research to that of its purchase and if possible, once there, via activities and leisure activities that allow the traveler to live like “a local” and take advantage of every moment at the destination to enrich your life.
The launch – now final and official – of TouringBird demonstrates Google's ambitions in the world of travel and leisure : be one of the dominant players. And for good reason, more than any other universe, leisure activities are consumed almost at the last minute and via a mobile phone. When we know that Android (its smartphone operating system) team 85% devices on the planet and Google announces the launch of a revolutionary new terminal this month, we understand better that the multi-colored firm attaches great importance to slipping in “home services” adored by Internet users. This is increasingly the case for leisure activities bookable online..
Thomas D.
Source : https://blog.elloha.com/2018/09/08/loisirs-en-ligne-ca-y-est-google-se-lance-aussi/