Google developers spent over two years trying to figure out how to improve Google travel products, and this research eventually led to the creation of Google Trips. Google Trips is designed to make the travel-planning process effortless, thanks to robust organization and trip suggestion features for full and half-day excursions, as well as Google Maps integration. What is Google Trips?The main purpose of Google Trips is to help users plan and manage their travel itineraries. From popular local attractions to hotel reservations, users can access all the information within Google Trips without having to bounce around to a bunch of different apps. Not only does Google Trips store the restaurants, hotels, and attractions that you find yourself, the app also makes suggestions based on your interests and location. These suggestions include the most popular itineraries used by other Google Trips users and data gleaned from other travelers who have visited the same area. The app creates separate tabs for each city you plan to visit, so you can search for activities, save places, and see all your reservations for each stop on your trip. Within each tab, there are further tabs for each day of your vacation, which makes it easy to plan daily itineraries. Google Trips can be linked to your personal Gmail account, and it can aggregate all of your airline reservations and travel information, as well as automatically suggest activities and plans based on that information. In addition, Google Trips uses Google Maps technology to find more interesting things to do near each destination on your trip. Additionally, all travel information stored in Google Trips is easily accessible, since it can be downloaded for offline viewing later. All of Google’s mobile apps work in unison to make Google Trips a powerful planning tool. Clever itinerary featuresThe Automated Itinerary feature allows users to let Google do much of their vacation planning. If you find yourself overwhelmed by planning your own trips, keeping everything organized, or coordinating plans with other travelers, this will be a welcome and refreshing change. The app gives users plenty of options, including popular attractions to explore. If you’re not impressed with the initial itinerary, a simple tap of the Google Trips Magic Wand will provide another list of suggestions by automatically updating with other nearby attractions. Another helpful planning feature is Getting Around Town. This tab allows users to view their various transportation options, and the estimated cost of each option is included as well. The Need to Know tab allows users to learn more about how to navigate a particular city and includes information on the local currency, major shops and stores, and popular restaurants. These suggestions are tailored to the length of your vacation, as well as any information that you may have saved prior on another Google app, such as Gmail or Google Glass. If you want a specific focus for your trip—such as restaurants, museums, or historic sites—Google Trips can customize your itinerary accordingly. Room for improvemenT While Google Trips is certainly a robust travel-planning app, the app still lacks a few features. The most obvious omission is the lack of weather data integrated into the app. Weather conditions often dictate your activities when you’re traveling, so it would be helpful if local forecasts were included. As it is, users will have to rely on another app for this.
Another drawback of Google Trips is that it does not cater to business travelers in the same way as other platforms, such as TripIt. Google Trips only pulls data from Gmail accounts—so any trip information you have stored in a non-Gmail corporate email account must be forwarded to your person Gmail account if you want it included in your Google Trips itinerary. This can be a tedious step that some travelers may not want to bother with. Early testers of Google Trips also reported a few anomalies within the app. At certain times, Google Trips did not properly download data from the testers’ Gmail accounts, in which case they had to manually create a trip within the app. For those who download the Google Trips app specifically for the purpose of effortless trip planning, having to manually create your trip may be enough to cause them to abandon the app. Privacy may also be a concern, especially in the day and age of technology being used to access people’s personal information for all the wrong reasons. Those who are concerned about Google Trips’ access to their Gmail account or GPS tracking of their comings and goings may be hesitant to use the app. Google Trips is available as a free download for both iPhone and Android devices, and the app is a good starting point for those who value a low-cost, easy-to-navigate app. It will be interesting to see how Google Trips evolves over time and whether the app sees widespread adoption. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorBruce Eaton is the president and chief executive officer of i2 Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a hit discovery and lead optimization technology provider serving clients in the pharmaceutical industry. Categories
All
|