This week... Google Flight Search to be rolled out; does APD really have an effect on travellers and the older generation join the Internet......

Welcome back to another instalment of this week, all the latest from CWT Digital and the world of travel and technology.

Last week we saw Air Passenger Duty in the news, with many big UK airlines joining forces to fight the government against the proposed rise - BUT is this really an effect on the consumer or does this effect airline prices?

Another hot topic in the online world is Google+, having just recently released pages for brands Google’s social network is still developing to increase activity. For all of this and more please do read on!

CWT Digital News:

There’s still time... - 21st November - You still have until the 2nd December to enter our Big 10 competition to win a free social media audit for your company. To find out more and enter click here.

Travel News:

Google Flight Search to be rolled out - 17th November - After 2 months in beta testing in the US, Google have now confirmed that they will be rolling out the flight search product to other countries around the world. The exact time frame of the roll out has not been released but it is believed that it will be staggered by country rather than rolling out all at once. Google flight search has already caused quite the stir in travel with many comparison sites, such as Kayak, fearing it will take business due to Google’s dominance in search.

Passengers are unaware of APD - 18th November - Air Passenger Duty (APD) was in the news last week when Easyjet, Ryanair, BA and Virgin Atlantic joined forces to campaign against rising APD. Following this, Skyscanner carried out a survey of UK travellers to find out what they thought of APD. Surprisingly 56% of travellers claimed that they didn’t know what APD was and of those that did know what it was, only 7% claimed it played an important role in their travel decisions. According to Skyscanner ‘APD charges last year have little impact on flight searches from the UK’. Time will tell if the ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign by UK airlines will bring APD charges to light with UK holidaymakers but for now it is evident that APD has a minimal effect on travel purchase decisions.

Technology News:

Latest reports shows UK older generation are warming to the Internet - 17th November - According to the quarterly update from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) the number of people who have never used the Internet in the UK has decreased to 8.4 million, which is a substantial decrease of 300,000 than the last report. The report revealed that of these new users, a quarter of a million are over 55 and 164,000 are over 75. It is believed that ‘older people have the most to gain from from the web, as mobility and loneliness are more likely to become issues’. As the older generation start to flock to the Internet it will be interesting to see how websites respond to this different type of user.

Google+ adds trending topics - 21st November - Google +, which has just recently opened its pages for brands offering, has now added a new feature in the form of trending topics. The same as Twitter, trending topics shows what’s been spoken about the most on Google+ yet only shows once a search has been carried out. So far Google+ has struggled to get off the ground after what was a very successful launch (15 million users in a week) with now over half of original users not returning once signed up. By adding in these new features Google+ are no doubt aiming to increase use of the platform.

That’s all from us this week we hope you found our picks useful. Of course if you want to keep up with us during the week then make sure you follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Have a great week!