The Google Frommers’ acquisition has been widely covered this week in mainstream, trade and online media. But is this just because it’s Google or are there more serious implications for travel? EyeforTravel’s Pamela Whitby investigates

So Google has acquired Frommers, a respected source of travel information which also offers travel deals, photos, blogs and user-generated content from all corners of the world for a reported $25m. Small fry when you consider what they shelled out for reviews and ratings business Zagat ($150m) and flight search comparison business, ITA ($700m). So is this Google on the road to dominating the travel vertical and should the industry be worried? Well it seems it depends on who you are and what you do.  

Vanessa Barnett, technology and media partner at UK law firm Charles Russell thinks the competition issues for Google in this space are “less hot”. “It’s not – yet – a go-to player in travel,” she says. Note the emphasis on - yet.

Undoubtedly Google is serious about travel and, well, that is hardly surprising. Travel is the thing consumers search for most on the web. Google hasn’t said too much about the deal but one thing seems clear right now: the first objective is to attract more advertising related to online-travel bookings and local-business information.

Google already helps people find the places they are looking for, now it wants to help people get there and it probably also would like to influence what they do while they are there. But will it go much further and what does the industry make of the deal?

EyeforTravel.com spoke to TripAdvisor’s Martin Verdon-Roe, VP display sales, who reiterated the official company line that they are bit surprised that Google “is investing in the opinion of one” and that it seems “almost a step backwards”.  TripAdvisor already has a community of millions of reviews – it has just hit the 75 million review and opinions milestone and 50 new pieces of travel advice are posted every minute. “More and more people are writing and reading reviews and we believe that is what travellers want rather than the opinion of one,” he says.

What does concern TripAdvisor, however, is that Google’s practice of pointing users to Google-owned properties.  “We wouldn’t want to see organic search results being influenced so that they are pointed more to Frommers than other travel websites around the world,” he says.

TripAdvisor might be pleased to know that, according Adam Bunn, director SEO at digital marketing specialists, GreenLight, this shouldn’t be cause for concern. He says that historically, for example, BeatThatQuote (another recent Google acquisition in the finance vertical) doesn’t perform very well in natural search and nor does Zagat in the UK. In the US Zagat is most visible site for restaurant searches, he says, but it always did perform well there. “This suggests that Google won’t do anything as obvious as deliberately favouring its own content in natural search.”

TripAdvisor is certainly not convinced but Verdon-Roe says this is something “we and plenty of other companies will be watching very, very closely”.

For Bunn, what is more likely is that Google, as it has supplemented Google Places with Zagat data, would look to incorporate Frommer’s content in a similar way, and in other supplementary ways. “We should certainly expect it to appear in the Knowledge Graph,” he explains, adding that “for marketers, this was – and still is - already something to think about.” [Knowledge Graph, in case you didn’t know, is essentially a database that contains over 500 million people, things and places and also reveals the connections and attributes that exist between them]. So the addition of Frommer’s doesn’t change much there.

So where then should companies be focusing their energy? “On what Google can’t do - like provide in depth content or sell things,” says Bunn. 

That is exactly what Yelp is doing, says Eliot Adams, Yelp’s European PR manager. It most certainly does not comment on competitor announcements but is rather focusing its “efforts on creating the best city guide for locals and continuing to deliver on international expansion plans.” The company’squarter-on-quarter unique visitors this year were up over 10%, as are the total reviews submitted to Yelp over the same period. This, says Adams, illustrates the continued draw for users in the 17 countries we currently operate.

For online travel agent, Priceline.com companies that have little or no content have reason to worry about Google’s latest move but that is not the case for them.  “We have a deep – and proprietary - inventory of millions of hotel reviews and satisfaction scores generated from customers who have already stayed at the properties,” says Brian Ek Vice President PR at Priceline.com.  “We also have descriptions custom-written in-house, along with maps, photos and so on.  And we own the MyTravelGuide online city guide.”

Content is still King!

This brings us to what we might argue is the nub of the acquisition – content. Not everybody thinks it is a backwards move. “In buying Frommers, Google recognises the importance of content,” says travel industry mentor, Don Birch. In this case it is a mix of user-generated content and curated travel content - Frommers delivers both. He adds that the “battle cry of ‘content is king’ was taken over by the sirens of social media, ‘likes’ and gamification, but the reality is that travel is an emotional purchase and travellers want some degree of assurance that they have made sensible choices.”  

For Barnett, this is “just another step in Google’s mission to organise the world’s information but this time the focus is on travel and the combination of the two is powerful”. 

It is perhaps also a reflection of how we travel.  Whereas in the past we looked at the guide book first and then battled with the paper maps, now many people are connected and geo-located.  “The location drives the content in a much more tailored way,” says Barnett.

And good content is important in the travel cycle of inspire, research, validate, purchase, anticipate, consume and report, says Birch and buy this acquisition Google has moved to fill a gap in the depth of their offer. “From a competitor point of view the purchase of Frommers by Google makes the Google travel offer more compelling, so it is time for the competition to up their investment in current, relevant content,” he stresses.

Whether Google steps up its game to offer more in depth content remains to be seen. Bunn doesn’t think so.  “Google will eventually become a ‘surface level destination’ for many topics, he says.  “In the past, it hasn’t been a destination at all, but nowadays if you don’t need to buy something or read about something in great depth then often Google can answer the question without sending you to another site.”

Bunn also doesn’t believe that Google will be selling holidays any time soon. “The business model still relies on selling clicks, so there is a limit to what Google can do,” he says. But he does have this warning.  “Tour operators at least are safe... aggregators, possibly not so much.”

Whether a commercial giant like Google should be go-to place for customers to make choices on every aspect of their lives – and whether this is also in their best interests - is highly debatable.

Both Barnett and Birch agree that the winner is customer who will now have seamless access to information to make their journey more enjoyable. TripAdvisor most certainly does not agree. In the Wall Street Journal this week chief executive officer, Stephen Kaufer said: "I absolutely worry that Google will preference Frommer's content above organic search results to the detriment of the users' experience and the enrichment of Google.”

It may be subtle but the battle cry is getting louder and three Cs are clearly audible: content, consumer and the wisdom of crowds.