Google head asks where is the Netflix of travel

Travel brands ‘struggling’ with digital compared to other sectors

Google’s industry head of travel called for the sector to better harness digital personalisation to drive customer loyalty and boost sales at an event hosted by Travolution’s sister title Aspire.

Jayan Chauhan highlighted the “brilliant” customer profiling techniques used by the likes of Amazon and Netflix, both of which give the user tailored recommendations based on similar patterns from its subscriber database.

More: Netflix and Amazon ‘show possibilities for travel’

Chauhan said digital personalisation had the power to accelerate customer loyalty in the travel sector, an industry where it is historically hard to capture.

“Where is the Netflix of travel, where you’re using data from existing customers and looking at trends for the rest of your customers?” he asked. This, he added, allowed businesses “to be even more personalised with recommendations”.

Chauhan cited research from social media monitoring service Digimind, which found that 69% of travellers were more loyal to brands that gave them a personal experience.

He added that while some aspects of the industry, such as reps in resorts, travel agents and concierge services, had a “very personalised feel”, travel brands were “struggling a lot more” when it came to digital.

“People look for a destination first, they’re not thinking about the brand first,” he said.

“Driving and gaining [loyalty] is very hard and personalisation is absolutely one way to be doing it.”

Chauhan also urged suppliers and agents to optimise their mobile websites, claiming they were at risk of losing half of their customers if their mobile website loaded slowly.

Google itself has seen a dramatic pace of change since vowing to become “mobile first” across all platforms in 2010, when mobile made up only 1.5% of the firm’s web traffic. Today, more than 50% of all Google queries come from mobile.

“I was going to name and shame a few of you, but I was told I’m not allowed to,” Chauhan said. “So go and check your mobile speed – there’s a free site we offer called Webpagetest. org. If your site takes more than five seconds [to load], it raises your blood pressure more than a horror movie. Please go and sort that out.”

More: Netflix and Amazon ‘show possibilities for travel’