Google Launches Attractions Tickets Globally on Mobile

Skift is claiming that Google has taken a major step into the tours and activities space, and rolled out a tickets feature for local attractions around the world on mobile devices.

If you do a Google search for One World Observatory, you’ll see a direct link for “in-person tickets” at the supplier website. These tend to be more informational about how to buy tickets when you show up to the attraction in person, and are not for online booking.

Formerly, when Google was handling bookings on Google, with the help of online travel agencies, a host of tech providers were involved to facilitate the booking.

But they could be less involved than they were with Reserve with Google because the integration with Google is not as complex.

Google is now scraping the web for supplier-direct websites for information on how to get in-person tickets, and this could diminish the role of reservations partners, ranging from Checkfront to FareHarbor and Tripadvisor’s LaFourchette, as far as direct supplier information and bookings are concerned.

While Google’s links to online travel agencies for tickets are free for now, you can expect Google to eventually offer a combination for free and paid links, like it currently does for Google Hotels.