Google has rolled out a new feature in Search called Destinations, designed to boil down all travel-related questions and answers to a single screen on mobile devices.
The new feature can be surfaced by typing in a location such as ‘Europe’ followed by ‘destinations’ or ‘vacations’. The feature integrates Search with Google’s travel products, Google Flights and Hotel search.
The idea is to make Google’s Search, be it in the browser on Android or via the Search app on iOS, the one-stop shop for researching and planning trips.
It’s only available on mobile and for now has only been launched in the US and a few select markets. Users in Europe can see a partial view of what Google is launching minus the summary of hotel and flight pricing, which are both otherwise available in unintegrated forms.
Destinations can also be triggered by combining a location and activity in a search, such as ‘Spain surfing’, ‘New Zealand hiking’, or ‘Colorado skiing’. Google Search will suggest places that match users’ specifications and interests.
Having it all in one place also means no switching between links in different tabs in a browser, or different apps, to find answers to questions about different aspects of travel, such as destinations, the best time to visit a place, and the all-important question of prices for hotels and airfares.
The Destinations feature also offers a flexible dates filter that can refine results by month to reveal seasonal price variations across multiple destinations.
Integration with Google Flights and Hotel search ensures instant delivery of prices to the Search app. However, as with Google Flights and Hotel search, actual bookings are passed off to partners such as airlines, hotels, as well as aggregators across both industries.
Destinations currently have suggested itineraries for 201 cities worldwide.
It saw a 50 percent increase in travel-related questions on mobile phones.
