It is like a Mall owner selling all products at the mall entrance.

Ya I hate Walmart too

Bill Gates has said long back "Middleman must add value" in his book "Business @ speed of thought".
I think this statement holds true even in this situation.
Travel sites and similar sites must add value so that people will come to their site instead of booking through google.
Think about this Google dont have a good reputation in Telephone / email support to say the least :).
I am not from travel industry but how do you think people will be comfortable if there is no support for travel, hotel or airlines booking.
Just a point for discussion IMHO.

Thanks
Rajiv

"Widgets with Adsense will probably come next surely and this may spread outside the US/Canada."
In fact that will be great for us publishers who are not in the flight or hotel sector but ranking well in travel/holiday destinations ......I expect the adsense widgets will soon introduce hotel and car hire search as well.

Bill Gates has said long back "Middleman must add value" in his book "Business @ speed of thought".
I think this statement holds true even in this situation.
Travel sites and similar sites must add value so that people will come to their site instead of booking through google.
Think about this Google dont have a good reputation in Telephone / email support to say the least :).
I am not from travel industry but how do you think people will be comfortable if there is no support for travel, hotel or airlines booking.
Just a point for discussion IMHO.

Thanks
Rajiv

100% agree. Google are a business and the minute they sold shares they gave up control. So it's basically up to us to get resourceful and the above post is the way to do it IMO.

A successful offline business will only survive if it has something customers want. If an online business has stuff people want, people will come even if you are on page 10 of Google.

I watched a newscast the other day about how traditional travel agents are making a comeback. Seems people aren't happy when they buy vacation packages online and either don't get what they thought it would be, or can't reschedule, or have other issues and there's no "person" to deal with a problem.

In the interview, the reporter dug up the lowest price they could get on a few vacation packages -- the travel agent matched or beat the price every time -- and told them about some upgrades they could get by paying with a certain card, flying on a different day, bundling car rental, etc..

But, if all you do is run a a "thin affiliate site", (e.g.- refer major airlines, hotels, cruise ships, etc), I think your site's days are numbered.

Martin Niemöller might have said this about Google:

First they came for the affiliates,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't an affiliate.

Then they came for the mortgage brokers,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a mortgage broker.

Then they came for the travel agents,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a travel agent.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Human nature is such that the majority that are not inconvenienced will allow almost any behaviour to continue, and sometimes be left in a very bad position as a result.

In an information economy it cannot be right that one company has so much power (especially in the UK - 92%) and be allowed to step on more toes almost every month.

I agree Inbound, but let's not kid ourselves, most big companies would do the same as Google if they were allowed to do so.

As I said earlier, I think Google gets away with so much because the politicians are incapable of understanding the implications of G's actions.

Somewhere in this 45 minute video MC answers a question re Flight Search saying he expect it to iterate outside the US in the not too distant future. I wonder where it will be next :

[youtube.com...]

Sorry - i didn't record the exact 2 mins where it was said.