Richard TurenThere is, as Sherlock Holmes might observe to Watson, "something afoot over at The Google."

Leave it to our profession to be filled with so many myopic visionaries that we fail to notice a pair of rather large elephants over there in the corner of our room.

For a few years, Apple and Google seemed to be in study mode. They had an interest in travel, that much was clear. Their motives are no surprise.

When gambling and pornography are the two most visited online categories, one turns to whatever it is that is taking up third place in terms of searches and clicks. That, of course, would be the travel industry. We're simply the biggest game in town, aside from those two more sinister online segments. Fortunately for us, we're an honorable industry compared with the first two, and there is little social stigma for either of the elephants to start spreading out and getting comfortable in our room, with an eye to ultimately making it their house.

Apple is a secretive company. Store managers have no idea when new product launches will take place, and the company doesn't grant interviews that deal with its future plans. There is immense security surrounding any future moves that Apple, now the largest U.S.-based corporation based on stock valuation, might make. What we do know about this iGorilla is that it has filed a number of iTravel patents.

Here is what we think we know about Apple's plans: iTravel will start out as an aggregator of travel information, beginning with flight reservations but quickly encompassing other related travel services. Think of iTravel as a collection point, a personalized portal, for travel plans both domestic and international.

Hotel, sightseeing and dining options will eventually go into iTravel to create a personalized album of future travel plans and confirmed reservations. But the key word is "eventually." Given the speed of evolution in the tech marketplace, eventually could be less than six months away.

Something called Passport will debut as part of the new Apple iOS.6 operating system, which is due out any day now. This will enable clients to store their own boarding passes, scan for theater tickets and provide direct links to social media sites that provide coupons relevant to the destination, product and dates selected.

Less than a month from the time this column appears in print and online, all new Apple products will enable users to quickly scan flight status and set up alarm notifications when flights are delayed or canceled. It is doubtful very many travel agencies will be able to match the speed with which this information is made available to the flyer.

So why is Apple doing this? How long will it be before Apple decides it wants to control content and own a piece of the booking action, essentially going after both online travel agencies and traditional travel retailers?

When it comes to Google, the intent of recent moves within the travel sector is more difficult to divine. But I think we should take no comfort in the assurances by some industry analysts that Google's recent forays into travel content are just more of what Google has been doing for years -- collecting and disseminating data. After all, Google co-founder Sergey Brin spelled it all out when he explained, "We want Google to be the third half of your brain." That is not a position that makes me think this is an entity with which we, as product sellers, should feel comfortable.

True, Google is being judged on what it has not yet done. But there are some interesting blocks falling into place, and they lead me to believe that the acquisition of more and more travel content may mean that "The Google" could be perceived as the major threat to the current prevailing wisdom that travel agents bring value to the transaction.

In August, Google announced plans to purchase Frommer's travel content from its publisher, John Wiley & Sons. The search giant stated that it wants to "provide a review for every relevant place in the world," a very similar explanation to the one it offered last year when it purchased the Zagat Survey restaurant and business review service.

These recent purchases come on the heels of Google's 2010 acquisition of ITA Software -- in my view, the very best of the flight data providers. ITA Software had been used by the nation's most knowledgeable air agents because of its lack of bias and its inclusion of negatives about any flight pair.

Google was uncharacteristically open when the Justice Department ruled in favor of the ITA sale in 2011. The company asked, "How cool would it be if you could type 'Flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May' and, instead of just a set of links, get flight times, fares and links to sites where you can buy tickets quickly and easily?"

Now the prevailing wisdom is that Google will sell ads after it has built its growing collection of authoritative travel and restaurant reviews. The key word here is "authoritative" -- a stark comparison to user-generated reviews that comprise the content of industry leader TripAdvisor.

While it is true that online leisure advertising last year generated a total of $2.5 billion, Google surely took note of the fact that travelers in the U.S. spent more than $100 billion booking travel online.

This has to be considered low-hanging fruit, and one wonders how long Google will be satisfied with those little ads to the right of their content when they could be increasing revenue many times over by becoming a one-stop source for researching, planning and purchasing the entire vacation experience.

If you can two-click to the best sites tailored to your unique travel profile, find the best flights, read serious reviews and then book hotels, read restaurant and sightseeing reviews -- and then book reservations, receive mapping and driving directions and notifications of any future itinerary changes -- why would you not consider this a viable business model? Oh, and by the way, you will be able to do all of this on your smartphone.

The reality is that all the necessary technology is already out there, just waiting for someone to combine it all into the world's easiest booking engine.

Can it be that while we've been concentrating on OTAs and direct-booking models, we should have been glancing over at our favorite search engine?

Back in 2010, Eric Schmidt, Google's current executive chairman, proclaimed, "We don't cross into content." Already we see that Google has transformed itself, in part, into a travel media company. How many steps does the elephant in the room have to take to be a travel-planning and -selling company?

Contributing editor Richard Turen owns Churchill and Turen, a vacation-planning firm that has been named to Conde Nast Traveler's list of the World's Top Travel Specialists since the list began. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.

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