Last week, Google released its revolutionary “still-in-prototype” product – Google Glass or rather Project Glass. If you haven’t watched the demo video by Google, watch it here. Lets discuss how Google Glass is going to play a role in travel industry, its impacts, its practical usages. Note: Google Glass is still in prototype stage, so this post is a high-level speculation on how Glass is going to be used in travel industry. We will do a detailed analysis when the Glass is finally released for public view or when Google sends us any prototype for testing

First things first. Is Glass going to play a major role in travel? Yes, it will. Both travellers and enterprises (travel companies) are going to use Glass in a way they have never used before. Let us describe the scenarios in detail.

The augmented reality screen projects 14 icons for the user to see. They are primarily – Calendar, Voice, Google +, Camera, Location, Audio, Search, Chat, Maps. Among 14 icons, 9 icons/features are frequently used by a traveller. Very careful and thoughtful selection by Google.

Google Glass is well integrated to all Google services, especially Google+. Right now, Google + is in the radar of enterprises, but G+ is not as close as Facebook and Twitter in the radar. After Glass, we predict G+ is going to gain big time traction and travel companies are going to increase their spend (time, money) in G+. G+ will become a good platform for brand establishment, marketing, promotions & deals, customer engagement and issue resolution.

Travellers are going to love the way they capture moments, sceneries, interesting things during their travel. They no more have to reach to pocket, unlock the phone, open camera, press the “Click” button to take a photo. Sharing photos with G+ is made super easy. This process is going to increase interaction in social media (G+ in this case).

Enterprises HAVE to start planning for the “Latitude” feature in Glass. This is similar to the “location based services” that enterprises offer on mobiles. All (location based) services offered on mobile should be offered in Glass as well. Imagine a traveller walking on a street and notices a hotel (Marriott Hotel) where he has stayed earlier. Now, the Glass shall display a promotion / deal / recent updates in Marriott there by enticing the customer to know more details, generate leads. This is just an example. There are plenty of such scenarios that the enterprises need to think of and handle. The most creative enterprise will make the best use of Latitude feature!

Heard of Google Hotel Finder? We predict, the Maps feature in Glass is going to incorporate Google Hotel Finder functionality. There are plenty of reasons why Google would do this. This means – Hoteliers should list their hotels in Google Maps, mark the correct latitude and longitude and ensure that the hotel gets listed in Google Hotel Finder. When a traveller walks across a road, he should be able to see the list of hotels on that road, the cheapest and best hotels, its rating and their room rates too!

Now, moving to the big fish – Google Ads Google puts their advertisement in tiny screens like mobiles, laptops, desktops. Now, Google has got the ENTIRE VISION of human eye. You get the connection? We predict Google is going to place context centric (based on your location, what you see, what you do, your history of activities) advertisement on your vision Assume a traveller is on train from Reading to Ealing railway station in the UK, isn’t it logical to show a “Taxi for hire at Ealing station” advertisement to the traveller?

To reiterate, this post is a high-level speculation on how Google’s Project Glass is going to be used in travel industry. We will do a detailed analysis when Glass is finally released for public view.

You think any other uses of Project Glass in travel industry? Let us know in comments.

Author: Karthick Prabu