Bing introduces travel-focused results pages and a travel planning hub

Microsoft Bing has introduced a new travel search experience, the company announced on Friday. The new experience consists of travel-focused search results pages for travel destinations as well as a new travel planning and booking hub known simply as the Travel Guide.

Why we care. Search engines have been expanding their travel offers for years to the horror of online travel agencies – Bing’s new travel features only continue that trend.

The new search results pages for destinations are very image-heavy, which can make them more interesting for users. Many of the search features, such as hotel results or the Explore Destination Carousel, direct users to other Bing hotels. And because they’re more visually appealing than a standard search list, it can be even more difficult for OTAs to compete in search results.

The new Travel Guide is pretty similar to Google’s travel portal, but both Bing’s Travel Guide and travel destination search results appear to be exploratory, which can help customers in the early stages of their planning.

Revised target search results. Searching for a travel destination on Bing can trigger its new travel search experience (see below for the “Honolulu” query).

This search results page format includes a large search facility with a link to the travel guide (more on this below) for the travel destination, as well as carousels for local attractions and news. The best time of year to visit and hotel listings are highlighted on the page, along with ads for tours and activities.

Introduction to the Bing Travel Guide. “The travel guide serves as a starting point for your travel planning,” said Microsoft in the announcement. The travel guide’s landing page shows numerous travel destinations and gives users suggestions for the type of travel they want (e.g. solo, romance or budget). It also shows flights to different locations, coupons and deals, sample routes and travel packages.

Users can also search for a specific destination to view potential travel routes, attractions, and flight and hotel information. Clicking the Book Flights or Book Hotels links takes users to Bing’s flight or hotel results.

About the author

George Nguyen is an editor at Search Engine Land, specializing in organic search, podcasting and e-commerce. His background is journalism and content marketing. Before entering the industry, he worked as a radio personality, writer, podcast host and public school teacher.