Google has developed a new feature to help people plan and book their holidays on the go, in one search. The tool is called Destinations and will help users decide where to go on holiday and let you book it from your mobile device.
Destinations will produce results based on the most popular itineraries and results from other visitors. If you search on Google for a continent, country or state and add the keywords ‘destination’ or ‘travel’ to your search will bring up several options. In a blog post, Google said that the Destinations tool will integrate a ‘deep understanding’ of the world with Google Flights and Hotel search, so that you can see available flights and hotel prices instantly.
According to Google, the tool has been designed because more and more people are turning to their mobile phones to plan a holiday. The search engine said that last year, internal data showed that there was a 50 per cent increase in people asking travel related questions on their mobile devices. The Destinations tool is designed to answer questions such as where to go, the best time of year to go and give an idea of prices for that time.
If you wish to personalise your search, you can add words which describe activities- for example ‘California surfing’ ‘France skiing’ or ‘Lake District hiking’. When you select the destination, click the ‘explorer’ tab will provide you with a range of information, such as what the weather is like at a specific time of year and when the destination will be busiest, based on the historic visits from other travellers. The Destinations function also has a ‘plan a trip’ feature which will give you hotel and flight prices for the next six months. If you tap the pencil icon, you can customise the results to suit you, for instance the number of stops for a flight path, number of travellers and type of hotel.
If you perform a general search for a country, Google will bring up suggested itineraries based on historic visits from other travellers to the area.
In the spirit of research, Holiday Numbers tried out the Destination tool. If you type in a place followed by ‘destination’ on a computer it will bring up a list of attractions and areas of interest. For example, typing in ‘Orlando destination’ will show you a list of results related to the area. You can also filter by interests, such as culture/camping/architecture. However, when you perform the action on a mobile device- such as typing in Europe destinations- it will show you cities such as London, Rome, Barcelona and Prague with typical flight and hotel prices for a week.
A video from Google visually explains the tool:
To find out more about Google destinations, just pick up your phone!
