Well its early days, but the issue hear is really about the future of search. Its getting a bit frayed if you ask me. Good old G is shying away from organic search in favour of its own integrated services like #HotelFinder, the Carousel and its advertisers. Not great news for consumers at all but dread news for small hotels and tourism operators. See our video why your hotel is not listed in search results) on just how devastating this has become (Embedded at end of this | Also see more on our resources page ).
But search is getting a bit passe anyway and more and more people are seeking out sites like Tripadvisor and even Facebook, not only to find reviews but to get real information that they can trust, it is not an advertisement and has value.
Putting more value into search results is a good thing. And today their are so many ways to add value to information. Search has experimented with becoming more social, making it more relevant and more personal and Google has lead the way in this. But not for much longer Yahoo is catching up and now with Microsoft and Foursquare in talks we might see some big jumps in how search is tailored to travel shoppers.
FourSquare is a mobile check in platform, which means that users check in and foursquare show a map of great things to do as well as special deals that may be offered etc. It works for places you want to go to also.
Of course every tourism operator wants to be on that map, Yes?.. Ok but the big issue with search right now is authenticity. It got so bad that every top dick and harry selling everything from tooth whiteners to suncream pretended to be a local business to get on the map. And that got so hard to manage that Google decided with its Pengiuin 2.0 update that it would trust only the big guys and companies it knows. So that’s why small hotels fell of search.. Now you can climb back and u can find out how in the Free Video Series at Tourism Marketing Machines – Click Here to subscribe
The trouble with Search for Hotels and tourism