Have you been using Google to check out your dream holiday destinations? A new product from the Google stable — Flight search — will use your previous searches to draw inferences on your “preferences” to make it easier for you to book your flights.
According to the company, which launched the Flight search tool on Tuesday, “When you access Flight Search, you’ll immediately see the price and duration of flights to several popular destinations you might like to visit — based on your preferences and previous searches.”
The tool would further show users prices for destinations across the world on any date selected, thus making the choices simpler for travellers.
“When you click on the departure date field, you’ll see a calendar with the lowest fares for the route highlighted for each day. You can also use the lowest fares graph below the calendar to see how prices may fluctuate based on the season, holidays or other events. Scrolling through a couple of months quickly shows you when it’s a great time to fly,” Google said.
The tool will also show users best flights depending on both convenience and price.
Jet Airways is partnering with Google for this service. Senior Vice-President Commercial Gaurang Shetty said, “Giving our guests access to our flights for bookings through Flight Search will offer another convenient channel to shop for and book flights via their preferred search engine.” Further, among the online travel agencies (OTAs), Goibibo.com is tying up with Google for this service. “This is in line with our philosophy and core differentiation of delivering the fastest booking experience to our travelers,” said Ashish Kashyap, Founder and CEO of ibibo Group. However, another online travel agency, Cleartrip, said it doesn’t expect this model to have too much success in India.
“We think this will have limited success in the Indian market, as the consumer pricing on the air market is fairly homogenous across airlines and OTAs. Also, most of the trusted OTA service brands are not present in the Google Fight search product and, hence, the service outcomes for consumers might be different from what they have been experienced so far,” said Subramanya Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer at Cleartrip.