Trust.

"Do No Evil". What a great tag line. Sounds like it could belong to a previous article on Get Smart. A naive line from the 60s, encompassing wanting to do everything right and really really not wanting to do evil because there was already so much of it in the world. When you are a small company fighting the injustices created by the global players, everyone believes in you and of you. Such was the way of Google against the tyrants of Yahoo, AOL and the king of the kingdom, Microsoft.

Like so many popular movements before it, Google became a champion of the people, who were looking for their own way of tackling this new monster called the web. A new way to look at the world, from above and on the ground, a new way to search for things you didn't know you knew or even wanted to know. All the while doing the right thing and giving it away for free. Sure there were Ad Words but they were for the people that wanted to do business. We all agreed that 90% free was a good deal and surely the 10% business that Google wanted wouldn't make any difference to us.

Then Google became Gloobal and the world was different. Google was now so big that even 10% was bigger than most multi national companies and people started looking for a new champion. The bigger the company the more likely there is mistrust from the general public, especially if they don't understand the technological intricacies of how they really make their money. Google is looking to take on all competitors in it's field and more with the recent foray into social media with Google+ and the daily deals with Google Offers.

Yet it's the recent updates on services such as CNN, declaring "Bon voyage travel agents - Google's taking over travel" that have many in the travel industry feeling they trusted the wrong site for too long. Seems the travel industry was happy for Google to provide information and maps free of charge to them along with destinational information and put up with the information it provided OTAs but draw the line when the giant oversteps the mark and joins the already despised OTAs.

From Hotel Finder, through Google Flights to the most recent acquisition, Zagat's food site, Google is finding it hard to hide behind, we are doing this for the greater good of information being available to all. It all looks like a recipe for travel heaven to those living online and an attack to those still providing relevant travel services face to face. Google is already the most sophisticated search engine there is and it doesn't take a leap to see them challenging the big OTAs and going for everyone's business, including the high street travel agents, once they aggregate all of the search tools with a "book it" button.

With online hotel revenue already past $120 Billion in the US alone and slated to pass $150 Billion very soon, it seems odd that a company so advanced and in tune with online business today, hasn't decided it wants a slice of the action. Still we may all be wrong and it could be for the greater good of travelers without any repercussions to the travel industry.

Still I'd stay close to my clients and work on the angle that Google will never be able to replace, you.