Google ‘Things to do’ allows attractions and tour operators to display their products to the millions of people who come to Google every day for their travel needs. Launched in 2021, its ultimate goal is to make the travel research and booking experience as user-friendly as possible, seamlessly connecting visitors with the memorable days out that they are seeking.
Recently, a new self-editor tool was added to the Google ‘Things to do’ program, as an addition to connectivity partner options. This allows attraction and tour operators to add up-to-date information quickly and easily. To find out what this means for attraction operators and how they can take advantage of the benefits, we speak to Jason Grout, head of ‘Things to do’ partnerships, and Colin Keogh product manager for Google ‘Things to do’.
What is Google ‘Things to do’?
Starting with an introduction to Google ‘Things to do’, Grout says:
“The program has been around for about three years, but every year we launch more products and services as we continue to grow it. The main difference between the program today and what it was previously is that we used to be more focused on completing ticket transactions on Google, whereas ‘Things to do’ is strictly a partner referral program. So, we help users discover tours, activities and attractions on Google, but we hand off to the operator or the attraction’s direct website, or a third-party option like an OTA, to complete the transaction.”
The Google ‘Things to do’ product was born out of the fact that Google was seeing a lot of users asking for ideas on things to do, explains Keogh:
“Whether they were planning a trip to an attraction, trying to find a specific type of activity or tour they had in mind, or just broadly asking for ideas on things to do, we saw that people were increasingly coming to Google with these types of questions”
There was an obvious opportunity to address these user needs and help make Google more useful, allowing visitors to find answers to those questions, make plans, and discover new activities and attractions.
“It made a lot of sense for us to build this tool for the industry, so we can connect people searching on Google to the amazing businesses that provide the experiences they’re looking for.”
Helping users complete their travel journey
Google ‘Things to do’ is one of Google’s many tools that support travellers throughout their journey, such as Google Flights or hotel search. Google ‘Things to do’ is all about helping users complete their travel journey, and its search functionality incorporates the Admission Booking Module and POI Tours/Experiences for attractions, as well as the Tour Operator Booking Module and a Categorical search.
“From Google’s perspective, these are all free to participate in, so they offer free referral traffic,” adds Grout. As with other Google products, we’re focused on comprehensiveness, so we are showing the range of options that exist for a user to book a ticket or book a tour, including direct and third-party.”
More ways for attractions to be discovered
Explaining a little more about the different modules, Grout begins with the Attraction Ticket Booking Module, which shows prominent landmarks, for example, Alcatraz or the Statue of Liberty, as well as attractions, such as the Louvre or the Sagrada Familia.
“There are two different sections you’ll see on those pages across both maps and searches on Google. One is the admission section, which shows basic ticket entry. But we also wanted to have a place to show premium experiences. If it is something that includes a guided experience or something like a more premium tour with a guide to multiple locations throughout the day, we also share this experience in the Tours/Experiences section.”
There is also the Tour Operator Booking Module, which shows tour operators’ inventory on their business listings.
“If you’re a tour operator, you can tell Google not just your business name and what you offer but also the places you visit. For example, if you run a tour in New York that visits the Statue of Liberty, you can say to Google as part of this program, ‘Hey, the Statue of Liberty is a related location for my business.’ So, when people are Googling the Statue of Liberty, they can also see your products on this page.
“We are driving business by enabling this program to help inform Google about what other related searches we should be showing their products in.”
If we take the Statue of Liberty as an example, many more users will search on Google for the Statue of Liberty than for that individual tour business.
“So, this is a way for you to be able to show up on those types of highly trafficked queries to help you get discovered.”
The new self-editor tool
The addition of a self-editor function now allows operators who have claimed their business on Google to add their tour or attraction for free. Once they do that, users can see accurate and up-to-date information about those products on a variety of Google services, including Google Search and Google Maps.
“It makes it easy for businesses to add their tours and attractions directly to their profile, giving them more options in addition to working with a third party,” says Keogh.
“We work with partners throughout the industry, including small local businesses, and the reason we love this industry is because there are so many passionate people who are building these amazing experiences. Their focus is on creating those experiences for their guests on a day-to-day basis, and we know that they don’t necessarily have a ton of time to manage all the logistics that are involved with running a business, so we want to make this aspect easier for them.
“These are people who are already claiming their businesses on Google, adding their hours and information, and we thought, let’s also make it easy for their products to show up so that users have a sense of what they offer and to drive valuable traffic to these businesses.”
Empowering attractions with Google ‘Thing to do’
Talking about the difference between joining Google ‘Things to do’ with a connectivity partner and joining with the new self-editor tool, Grout says:
“If you’re an individual tour operator or attraction, you might already show up through third-party listings if you’re integrated with OTAs like Get Your Guide, Viator, or TripAdvisor. If you want to show up as a direct listing with your official site, you can work through a connectivity partner; many of these are the reservation technology partners that many of our operators or attraction folks may already be using.”
“However, we didn’t want to limit operators. We wanted to make a simple way for them to join, completely independent of any integration. That’s the idea behind the self-editor tool, which is now available for both tour operators and attractions. They can go to their Google Business Profile and then, in five minutes, just add their basic ticket information or tour product information, and then they’ll get that same Official Site designation on their page.
“The main difference is that a connectivity partner option will enable a few things that the GBP [Google Business Profile] solution does not, particularly the ad formats and some categorical search capabilities. Hopefully, the GBP solution will enable those in the future, but I think of it as more of a basic offering and then the integrated connectivity partner option can provide the full suite of Google products.”
Setting up using the self-editor could also be a good baseline, a chance for businesses to gauge whether they are getting traffic out of it.
“They can then consider whether they want to take advantage of even more parts of the program. But this is an easy solution for them to quickly gain a lot of the program’s value.”
Helping users be successful
Google ‘Things to do’ is a useful tool for a wide range of attractions, across different sectors.
“We’ve tried to take in a pretty wide swathe of the industry,” says Grout. “On the attractions side, that means anyone that has an admission ticket, such as landmarks, museums, zoos, aquariums, amusement parks and more. And with tour operators, we have tried to take a really wide eligibility group too, so it’s anyone that offers a tour or experience. It doesn’t have to be just like a typical walking tour operator, it could also be a boat rental provider or something like that.”
To help these operators be successful on Google, the ‘Things to do’ team is also working to get the right information to them so that they can take advantage of the tools in the best way.
“One recent way we’ve done that is we’ve partnered with Tourpreneur and created a free course, which helps them navigate the different options they have when working with Google ‘Things to do’,” says Keogh.
“We are also creating more information through our help center. There is already a lot of information there, which people can access when they sign up on google.com/business, and more content will be added in the coming months.
“It’s important to remember who these businesses are, and what their day-to-day looks like; they have so many things going on. Working with Google and getting their products added and up to date is just one of many things on their list. So, we want to make it as easy as possible, and when something comes up that they don’t understand, we want to make sure that we’re addressing that in an easy way.”
More improvements to Google ‘Things to do’
The team is constantly working to improve Google ‘Things to do’ with more functionality, reacting to the needs of the attractions industry.
One example is the Activities and Tours carousel or experiences search:
“This can show both direct and third-party content, so attractions with pricing information, but also more categorical queries,” says Grout. “So, instead of specific business listings, like the Statue of Liberty, this can show broad queries like things to do in San Diego, but also slightly more specific things like wine tours in Napa or bike tours in Miami. We see a lot of opportunity in helping drive more partner referrals by continuing to expand the types of ‘Things to do ’-related categorical queries that these types of carousels will show.”
Keogh adds: “We’re going to be looking for ways to make it easier for businesses to use tools like this, to work with people on adding their information so that, again, they don’t have to spend a ton of time doing it.
“We have users coming to Google all the time asking either very broad or very specific questions about what they want to do. And we’re going to increasingly try to answer those questions in more interesting ways, where we can show these great products that are being added to Google to more users. I think you’ll see a lot more growth in that area as we try to answer more of these users’ questions.
“The more we can answer users’ questions, the better we can provide value back to the businesses.”
The benefits for attractions
Summing up the benefits of Google ‘Things to do’ and the new self-editor tool, Keogh says:
“We know that users are coming to Google and asking questions about things to do. Whether it’s a traveller who’s doing a bucket list trip or a weekend excursion, or it’s a local who is looking for something amazing to do with their kids, people are always looking for experiences and for how to best spend their time. That’s why these operators created their businesses, and so the advantage of adding the products to Google is that this is where users are coming to explore ideas.
“People come to Google when they’re first looking for that inspiration. And so, we want to help connect businesses to meet those people where they are.”
They can also trust that the information is accurate and up to date.
“That’s why we like to work with attractions and operators in this way: to get that accurate information. We understand that it is vital for users to be able to trust the information, so we make it easy for businesses to keep that information up to date. This means that, when we do make this connection, users see the right information and are not surprised when they visit.”
Google’s original mission statement was to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
“This applies nicely to the travel and attractions space, because people initially search with general ideas, but oftentimes, they don’t know exactly what they want to do,” says Keogh. “They’re just exploring. And so, Google can organise all this information for them and help them find the right provider so that they can spend the precious time that they have on the experience itself.”
