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Google adds new features to flight and hotel searches
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31 August 2017 (Edited )
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Per Google Blog, changes are:

Google Flights:

  • New features are active on mobile now, will be available for desktop later this year.
  • Tapping on "Dates" opens a calendar view of date combinations with lowest and highest prices highlighted.
  • Or for trips of X days, price graph will show you how fares vary over time:

For hotel searches:

  • When searching dates for a specific hotel, nightly rates are displayed in calendar view.
  • And you can also see how rates change over time:

Airports:

Google now lets users see an interactive map showing all airports near a destination, with distances. Intent is to enable users more easily to find the cheapest flights and make intelligent distance/price tradeoffs.

And there's also similar functionality for hotels:

Google says they've made these changes because 3 out of 5 people (in a sample of 467 Americans aged 18+ taken in July 2017) said they'd be open to changing travel dates if it would save them money.



That's a pretty thin sample on which to base an initiative as expensive as making these changes must have been for Google. So I suspect that along with this altruistic motive Google was also motivated by research that predicts more revenues for Google from these changes.

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David Boggs MS    - David
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External Article: https://www.blog.google/topics/travel/new-ways-make-trip-planning-easier-and-cheaper/


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