Skift Take
Ranking for city-specific experiences search terms is fiercely competitive and an expensive part of performance marketing that tends to favors online travel agencies with big budgets. A new carousel in Google's Things To Do adds an interesting shift in search display.
Google has made the search and discovery of their tours and activities easier for tour operators by introducing a new carousel in its search results.
The new Activities and Tours carousel, released last month, is available only on mobile search and is primarily focused on English-language queries, with plans to expand to other languages and platforms like Google Maps in the near future, the company confirmed to Skift.
Tour operators stand to benefit from more direct traffic and booking inquiries as the new carousel displays free listings of products relevant to a particular search – like a Bike Tour in Paris, or a Food Tour in Rome, for example. This expands Google's Things To Do listings to include a broader search beyond Points of Interest and ti