I've thought a lot about Google taking a serious run at the Travel category over the past few years. Mostly because that's part of what I was paid to do, and also because it makes a lot of sense. So I was interested to see Mathew Ingram's piece in today's Globe and Mail (which seems to have spun out of this blog posting) where he talks at length about the prospect. For the most part, I think he got it right.

For one thing, Google certainly has designs on being a portal, if their recent moves with Finance and Real Estate are any indication. Beyond that, their competitors are already there in Travel, sorta, with Yahoo!FareChase leading the way and msn Travel (in typical Microsoft fashion) representing a half-step towards a fully integrated travel "thing". As well, there is a lot of money at play, both from an ad and a distribution cost perspective, and they have reason to want to maximize it. Finally, if they have been nervous about upsetting the ad-revenue apple cart in the travel category (huge numbers) that nervousness has likely been reduced by things like IAC's purchase of Ask.com. IAC maintains a controlling interest in Expedia, and with this purchase is both a big customer of, and a direct competitor to, Google.

However, I think that there is a big difference between Google ramping up their travel "experience" and them actually fully taking on the OTAs. In terms of them having some multi-site search experience and sending traffic from that to an OTA or a supplier (airline, hotel etc.). that seems like a pretty obvious thing. Suppliers would love it, and the competitive gauntlet has already been thrown down.

But actually selling travel? Yikes. Why would they? Call centres, rules and regs, etc. etc. Easier to just further solidify their role as gate-keeper, and take advantage of the lack of loyalty and brand meaning that these guys have to crank out the ad money.

Also, worth noting that most of this applies less here in Canada. For a bunch of reasons, the OTA and Supplier landscape is different and it is less likely that the existing dominant players here (Expedia.ca, AirCanada.com and WestJet.com) would suffer or benefit much from such a move by Google. Why? Well, the competition is lighter here, they often have exclusive inventory, offer pricing of global inventory in Canadian dollars, work better and have brand meaning that brings a lot of business direct.

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