Skift Forum Europe: Google Travel Exec Details Changing Consumer Behavior
Skift Take
Companies often chase and vie to sign on influencers for marketing purposes, but all can agree that Google is one of the most powerful forces in travel. Despite Facebook's inroads, Google travel products are ascending and Heckmann will shed light on their trajectory.
On April 4 in London, hundreds of the travel industry’s brightest and best will gather for the first Skift Forum Europe. In only a few short years Skift's Forums — the largest creative business gatherings in the global travel industry — have become what media, speakers, and attendees have called the “TED Talks of travel.”
This year’s event at Tobacco Dock in London will feature speakers including CEOs and top executives from InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Norwegian Air, Google, Lonely Planet, Momondo Group, and many more.
The following is part of a series of posts highlighting some of the speakers and touching on issues of concern in Europe and beyond. See the complete list of amazing speakers and topics at this year’s event.
Get Your Tickets Now
If you want to dig for new information about consumer behavior in travel and beyond it, Google's a good place to start.
Oliver Heckmann, vice president of engineering for Google Travel, says one takeaway so far from its Google Trips app, which debuted in September, is that more than one third of the app's users download destination data so they can use it offline later.
"Offline access is essential," Heckmann says. "We see that more than a quarter of travelers do not have a stable connection when they use Google Trips in-destination."
Travelers also like to build their own itineraries and download, on average, 12 starred items saved on Google Maps to refine their planned wanderings, he says.
What's clear about the future of travel — and life — is that the tech revolution has inordinate sway
