New Google’s ‘Destinations’ tool lets you plan entire holidays with a single search
- Number of people Googling travel questions on phones up 50% last year
- In response, the company has come up with its ‘Destinations’ tools
- Searching place name and ‘travel’ or ‘destination’ activates the feature
- The holiday suggestions are based on historic visits by other travellers
The latest feature from Google is a way to plan and book holidays on the go.
Called Destinations, it can help you work out where to go on holiday and then let you book it, all from your mobile phone.
It brings up results based on the most visited itineraries, and based on historic visits by other travellers.
The new Destinations feature on Google helps users work out where to go on holiday and then let users book it directly, all on their mobile phones. It has been designed to answer questions such as where to go, what time of year is best to visit and give an idea what prices are like
Searching Google on a mobile for a continent, country or state and adding the word ‘destination’ or ‘travel’ afterwards will now bring up a collection of options, the company explained.
This has been designed because people have been increasingly turning to their mobiles to plan holidays, according to the search engine.
‘Last year, according to our internal data for google.com, we saw a whopping 50 per cent increase in travel-related questions on mobile phones,’ Google said.
Searching Google on a mobile device for a continent, country or state and adding the word ‘destination’ afterwards will now bring up a collection of options showing places with a Google flights and hotels history search to see available flights and hotels
It’s designed to answer the questions like where to go, what time of year is best to visit and give an idea what prices are like.
To make it more personalised, adding words describing activities will suggest particular places that suit those hobbies – for example ‘spain surfing,’ ‘new zealand hiking’ or ‘colorado skiing.’
Selecting the destination and tapping the ‘explore’ tab will bring up information including what the weather is like at a certain time of year and when the destination is busiest, based on historic visits from other travellers.
Destinations also has a ‘plan a trip’ feature that will bring up prices for hotels and flights for the next six months.
‘You can also tap the pencil icon to customize results further with flight and hotel preferences, including number of stops, hotel class, and number of travellers,’ the company said.
A general search for a country will bring up suggested itineraries are based on historic visits by other travellers to those places, which is perfect if you want to go along with the crowd.
Last year Google saw a 50% rise in the number of people searching for travel-related questions on phones. In response to this, it has launched Destinations – a way to plan a whole holiday with just one search
