Is Google going to take over the role of travel agents in the future?

This was one of the big questions asked by the travel industry at the annual Virtuoso Symposium, held last week in Cape Town. And the target of these questions was David Pavelko, partnerships director for Travel Google Inc.

According to Travel Market Report, Pavelko was once an exec at Cendant, parent company (at the time) of businesses like Avis, Budget, Wyndham and Galileo.

But what Google is focused on in the travel market, he claimed, is the “new travel consumer journey”, which literally breaks down the experience into “micro-moments”.

This means there are digital interactions at every step in the journey, from planning, to buying and experiencing travel.

Per TMR, he used his own recent experience with a travel agent as an example, where they would communicate via email and exchange links to websites to book hotels and develop unique local experiences.

Pavelko described micro-moments as instances where we instinctively turn to our devices – our tablets, laptops, mobiles – to act on a need. For example, the moment we want to book something, buy something, or know something.

According to Pavelko, Google is in a unique position where it can control a lot of these moments, as well as find ways to interact with users while they’re in any given step of the travel journey.

TMR reported that Pavelko said mobile notifications have become a gamechanger for the ways people travel.

He mentioned Google Now, an intelligent personal assistant developed for mobile apps, that can predict what users want, or deliver specific information relevant to the user, such as when their flight may have been cancelled.

“This is where mobile and digital is really changing our lives,” he said.

According to the travel publication, Pavelko claimed 59 per cent of travellers are always planning their next holiday, meaning there’s an enormous opportunity in the digital space for products that can help them do that.

Pavelko said Google developed things that capitalise on these user behaviours, such as Google Flights within the Google search function, and Google Hotels, which helps travellers find their idea accommodation.

“Our goal is to facilitate the transaction,” Pavelko said.

“We are reacting to what we’ve seen in the marketplace, and we are testing more hotel offers to drive more clicks and conversions.”

Google has also created Destinations on Google, which is a travel-planning tool that offers advice and suggestions to users on where to jet off to next.

“53 per cent of travellers want to explore somewhere they’ve never been on their next vacations,” Pavelko said.

“And 37 per cent want to visit an off-the-beaten path destination.”

Per TMR, Pavelko claimed that through this new tool, Google has seen a 45 per cent growth in destination-related searches on mobile devices through its search engine.

So what the heck does a travel agent do now?!

Relax guys, Pavelko wasn’t all doom and gloom on the impending reign of Google. In fact, he said there’s ways travel agents can still have an upper hand on technology.

Per TMR, Pavelko said agents can offer preferred rates and value-added bundles that are not easy to find in the traditional online world, and which still puts emphasis on price, the same way Google and other OTA services do.

Pavelko also stressed that digital tech could actually help travel agents by offering on-demand support and keep agents and their clients better connected.

According to TMR, Pavelko suggested travel agents ensure they’re not left behind in the digital age, and actually try and interact with travellers during those “micro-moments”.

He said agents should remind clients why their services are valuable, but go even further, referring them to digital tools where their services might fall short.

Speaking to TMR, Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch had a few more things to say on the state of the travel agent.

“Literally dozens of new ways of booking travel are being invented every day—supplier direct, OTAs, etc. Everybody is getting better at it,” he told TMR.

“Do not think of yourself as somebody who is there to book travel. Booking travel is the outcome of the way in which you interact in higher- value relationships.”

Upchurch told the publication that Google is moving away from “being just an answer machine to being more of a suggestion platform, [instead] providing context and helping you make more intelligent decisions, and pointing you in the right direction with suggestions.

“That’s what great travel agents do, so I could see why you would be threatened by that.

“But at the end of the day you also have relationships…and you need to ask yourself, where is the higher value of what I do?”