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DMO’s can learn from Google Labs City Tour

by Todd Lucier on June 25, 2009

What is Google City Tours?

Google has launched a new Labs innovation called Google City Tours. The premise is that Google knows what the attractions are in each region and can provide maps with links to attractions and provide relevant multi-day itineraries that help you explore the city

Why Google is no threat to DMO’s and Visitor and Convention Bureaus

While the idea is great, this Labs innovation falls flat for a number of reasons:

  • Google City Tour misses obvious attractions. In my search of Leamington, Ontario Google failed to identify Point Pelee National Park as worth seeing. Point Pelee is just a few km away and a national treasure!
  • Selected locations are not diverse. Most seem to be historical / museum-type attractions. When I searched cities I know well, the routes chosen overlooked obvious and locally renowned attractions such as wineries, gardens, parks, retail destinations, etc.
  • Google City Tour demonstrates absolutely no local knowledge – which is critical to giving real, helpful travel advice. Human powered advice sites like TripAdvisor provide much better and more relevant information for travelers.
  • Every traveler is unique. The idea of a mapped itinerary is a good one, but wouldn’t families, foodies, adventurers, shopaholics, museum lovers, etc. each want to visit different types of attractions? Yes, they would.

Google City Tours shows DMO’s what they should already be doing

Thanks to Google Labs City Tour for reminding DMO’s, visitor centres, Visitor and Convention bureaus and regional travel associations that Google provides some great technology for helping travelers find their way to meaningful, memorable travel experiences in your region.

  • Google.com/maps MyMaps feature allows DMO’s and travel regions to create their own customized map – for free. This post showed how tourism regions or businesses could do this over two years ago. DMO’s should be creating custom maps using icons, routes and local knowledge to share travel information that has real value.
  • Consider designing specific maps based on the interests of diverse types of travelers.
  • These maps can be embedded in Web sites like ours at Northern Edge Algonqui

Thanks to Twitter friends who pointed out Google Labs latest innovation:@anneh632 @mosherifdeen @travel2dot0 @wilhelmus – Give ‘em a follow.

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