It's been a while since we posted a G+ update so we'd like to share with you the latest successes our Travel clients have had on G+ this year: a case study from the UK and one from across the pond in the US.

Travel Republic: Online travel agents Travel Republic have two reasons to put the champagne on ice, having just reached a pair of major milestones in their social media activity. The company’s Google+ page is not only celebrating its first birthday, but it’s celebrating reaching 1 million followers on the platform too. Carry on reading if you want to know how they did it....click here.

Pure Michigan: As part of their social media campaign which won the Mercury Awards for Social Media, Pure Michigan created a G+ page in order 'to be where conversations about our state are happening. We created our Google+ Page to connect with folks inside and outside of Michigan to encourage them to vacation here.' They saw higher CTRs through social annotations: 'there is social proof in seeing which of your dozens of friends already follow the page. You feel compelled not to be left out.' In addition, they created an extremely successful hangout which resulted in their follower number jumping from 50K to more than 94K in a matter of days. For more, please click here.

Posted by Anna Tong, Industry Manager UK

Cross-posted on the ITA Software By Google blog.

If you live in the UK, France, Italy, Spain or the Netherlands -- and are thinking of hiking the Swiss Alps, visiting the Greek Isles, taking a bite out of the Big Apple in NYC or simply planning a business trip -- Flight Search is now available to make planning your trip easier.

Starting today, you can use Flight Search to quickly find, compare and book flights originating from each of these countries to any airport in the world. You'll also be able to search for flights from airports in these countries and see prices in your local currency. Additionally, you can conduct searches in 8 languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Dutch -- and see prices in your local currency.

Smarter travel planning
Let’s say you’ve decided the Greek Isles are your vacation destination of choice, but you’re not sure which airport offers the most affordable fares. By typing ‘Greece’ as your destination, you’ll be able to quickly compare the cost of the different options, viewing live prices on the map.

Likewise, if you’re looking to take the family to New York City but are unsure of the best time to go, you can click on our ‘Lowest fares’ icon to see which dates will get you the lowest fare.

We choose the best flights based on cost and total travel time, while covering a variety of departure times and airlines. But, you can always view longer or more expensive flights by selecting, 'Show all'. Flight Search makes it easy for you to:

• Find flights quickly. As you make changes to dates, destinations and filters, results will load fast in a format that’s easy to scan.
• Discover places to go on a map. Explore possible destinations and view live ticket prices by surfing the map. You can filter by price, airline or flight duration.
• Figure out the best time travel. Quickly see which travel dates are least expensive by dragging the date selector forward or backward, or click the "Lowest fares" icon to compare lots of dates at once.
• See a simple list of the most relevant flights. Use our easy-to-scan list or compare options and find the flight that's most convenient, least expensive, wi-fi enabled or simply the one that best meets your needs.

Sometimes we are not able to show results for every single airline and we will make that clear. We are working to expand our relationship with other airlines, and bring Flight Search to more countries and in more languages.

To access Flight Search in your local country or language, type:

google.co.uk/flights/
google.fr/flights/
google.it/flights/
google.es/flights/
google.nl/flights/

We’ve worked to provide you with fast results as you browse a simple list of the most relevant flights, figure out when to travel, and get ideas about where to go and book your trip online. We hope you’ll enjoy planning your next trip with Flight Search! Bon Voyage!

Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Senior Product Manager, Travel

ADVERTISING TRAVEL PRODUCTS TO MULTI-SCREEN CONSUMERS
Many travel companies are struggling with the speed of change in the mobile sector and in assessing the scale of the mobile opportunity, in deciding when and how much to invest in mobile, and whether to build mobile optimized sites and/or apps. The travel path to purchase is becoming increasingly complex in a multi-screen world, where customers jump not only from site to site but also from device to device in their online travel-purchasing journey.

The shift from desktop-only towards the use of multiple devices to access the Internet has radically changed how consumers engage with digital content and when they choose to do it. It is no longer an activity we solely conduct either at home or our work via a desktop computer, but is something which now also happens on the train, bus, in a café with friends, everywhere possible.

In this whitepaper we have seen evidence that usage behavior varies by device, which in turn has made the travel-purchasing process highly complex and therefore challenging for advertisers to fully grasp and benefit from. The only common denominator across all devices is that we, as users, expect to have our needs for information and services fulfilled immediately in a seamless and intuitive way. Travel advertisers must meet these expectations in order for their multi-platform strategies to become successful.

You can access the whitepaper here.

Posted by Jonas Vang Gregersen, Senior Industry Analyst UK.

This summer we have seen a notable shift towards the use of mobile devices, when the Brits search for last-minute travel products. For certain types of products, up to 40% of all Google queries are made on either a tablet or other high-end mobile device. We encourage online marketers to align their activities accordingly to ensure full capture of traffic which comes through Search on all devices. Please find more details about our findings at this link.

Posted by Jonas Vang Gregersen, Sr. Industry Analyst

We're pleased to announce a new case study for how LateRooms.com has found success with Google+. A few of the top highlights from the study include: Approaching 600k followers Several posts have been re-shared over 2,500 times and have received 500 comments A 9% CTR uplift with social extensions on their Brand campaign. Take a look at the blogpost here and download the full case study to see more results and quotes from LateRooms.com! Posted by Erica Trittschuh, Industry Manager UK.

Want to understand how search drives travel purchases? To compare mobile and desktop use? To understand more about the ROPO effect: research online, purchase offline. Or perhaps you want to deep-dive into the travel market in a particular country? Think Insights is home to the latest insights from a wide range of industries including the travel sector. The site houses case studies and thoughts from leaders to help you develop your travel digital strategy. And now the site has expanded to cover 21 different countries, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. You can now search our expanded library by country and by sector, making the latest travel research even easier to find. Plus, there are new tools and videos for you to explore, including: two videos on the consumer journey looking at ROPO and attribution. Check out this video to see how the newly expanded Think Insights website can help you. And follow Think on Google+. Posted by Claire Martin, Product Marketing Manager, Google UK

We are pleased to release our latest travel whitepaper, "London Olympics 2012". This paper analyses the impact of the Olympic Games and other major sporting events on the UK Travel Industry.

The objectives of this paper are to study the impact of the Olympic Games on both UK inbound and outbound tourism. In addition, the paper also considers some of the factors around the legacy of the Games. We have made recommendations based on the analysis and identified the key trends that we are seeing in the market

You can access the whitepaper here.

Many thanks!

Posted by Anish Acharya, Industry Analyst, UK.