Owning 70% of the world’s total search traffic, Google is often the first place people go to when planning their next holidays or a weekend escape.
NB: This is an article from GuestCentric
The search engine giant gives millions of online users worldwide a wealth of travel information to make the right purchasing decisions when booking a trip. Hotels should be prepared to respond to this demand and generate more direct bookings.
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In today’s fiercely competitive online travel market, I’m sure that one of your primary goals is to increase your direct bookings. Google is leveraging the demand for direct bookings by giving hotels the opportunity to stand out by themselves and reduce OTA reliance. In this article, we explore how Google Hotel Ads can help hotels increase their direct bookings, and share best practices to ensure your hotel generates the best results from this tool.
First things First, What’s the Difference between Google Hotel Ads and Google Hotel Free Booking Links?
Google Hotel Ads are paid listings that appear alongside any other ‘Google Hotel Ads’ being run. These ads appear in a property’s Google My Business profile and in Google hotel finder results. When a user clicks on a Google Hotel Ad, they are redirected directly to the property’s booking engine to complete the booking.
Google Hotel Free Booking Links, on the other hand, is a free listing in Google Hotel Search that displays a link to your website’s booking engine with an ‘Official Site’ badge. It shows hotels’ bookable rates and appears underneath any ‘Google Hotel Ads’ being run and is listed under ‘All options.’
How does Google Hotel Ads work?
If you are part of the Google Hotel Ads Commission program, your hotel’s booking engine rates will appear next to those of the OTAs. This allows guests to do a direct rates comparison between your hotel and third-party listings. Your hotel rooms will show up on multiple devices, with their meta market search where Google aggregates prices from different sources.
What your potential customers want should be at the top of the list so they can quickly discover which hotel has the best rate available. This means Google is using the same model as OTAs like Expedia or Booking. However, you will only pay a commission for each reservation you get and not per each click on your property link.
How will your hotel look online?
When an online visitor is searching for ‘best hotels near me’ on Google’s search engine, maps, or the assistant, they will see a page with some paid and organic listings displaying hotel photos, names, prices, and a map.
On the organic search results area, the potential guest can filter the number of persons, budget range, and stay dates, then pick the hotel stars they want. After a user chooses a specific hotel, Google provides access to the link to book for the period that was previously selected. The online visitor will then see the prices automatically, prior to entering the hotel booking engine.
Your potential guests will also see:
- Your Hotel Overview: Your hotel name, class, address, phone number, link to the hotel website, directions button, photos and hotel reviews in star format and evaluation, a brief description of the hotel/services, updated discounts: on specific stay dates and direct availability checker.
- Your Hotel’s Rates: Shown based on the pre-selected stay specifications Button where you can choose your own currency and filter the cancellation policy
- Your Hotel reviews: So that potential guests can see what previous guests have to say about your hotel – both good and bad.
- Hotel Pin: With exact map location and rating, this tab also includes highlights about the city or village where your hotel is located.
- Your Hotel Description: All the details about your property, benefits, services, and an extensive description of why it is the best place for the potential guest.
- Hotel photos: From the inside, outside, and street view.
The Benefits of Google Hotel Ads
Your potential hotel guests can learn a lot about your hotel at a glance on Google. If you have a good strategy in place, your hotel can benefit from the following:
