Under the innocuous title “There’s still time to plan your perfect spring break trip,” Google’s Richard Holden published an article late last week that showcased a range of new features from the search giants. Amongst updates to Google Flights and the ‘nearby hotels’ feature on Google Maps was a glimpse of ‘google.com/hotels.’ A closer look revealed a full-scale hotel search site with definite similarities to Airbnb’s clean, uncluttered, map-based interface.
So, what has actually changed? Well, Google has consolidated various elements of its hotel search experience in one platform. There are several new ways to filter results, including ‘deals’ determined by Google based on current and historic pricing data. The user experience still isn’t perfect and the process of actually comparing like-for-like pricing can still be frustrating. But while the hotel search experience in itself isn’t vastly different to what Google have been experimenting with in recent months in both their organic and Maps search, these new features and the simple fact that Google now has a dedicated site for hotel bookings could signal a watershed moment for online travel.
It looks like Google is making a play to own the lion’s share of the user booking journey within their own sphere of influence. It’s no wonder that Expedia and Booking Holdings spent $10.6 billion on brand advertising in 2018. If they weren’t already, hotels need to be taking very seriously the power of Google over their customers, their competitors, and their distribution partners. But there’s opportunity here too. Let’s take a look at what this update really means.
Seizing the opportunity of Google Hotel Ads
If there’s one thing that’s clear as a result of the update, it’s that Google wants to be the place where people decide what hotel they want to go to and how much they’re going to pay for it. The search platform aggregates a huge amount of content from both organic and paid sources: photos, reviews, business listings, prices, room descriptions, map data, and more. It’s a clear play to own the territory previously presided over by the major OTAs, suggests Triptease’s Chief Product Officer Alasdair Snow.
“Google’s changes bring their search experience much closer to the core historic utility of OTAs: the ability to compare and contrast hotels and use tools like maps and reviews to refine a hotel search down to a shortlist of possible options,” says Alasdair.
“With this functionality now present and prominently positioned inside the world’s number-one search engine, you can expect a lot more of this guest activity to take place within Google itself rather than on OTA sites. This puts Google in an amazing position to make itself the central hub where all guest research and decision making will take place.
“And, as long as Google continues to allow hoteliers to own the guest relationship when participating in this experience – and we don’t see that changing! – this is a huge and timely opportunity for hoteliers that they should seize with both hands.”
If Google continues to become the destination of choice for guests searching for hotels and comparing prices, hotels should be looking to make the absolute most of that by getting their direct price in the mix when they are likely to win the booking. That means bidding when you have the best price and when the guest’s previous searches indicate they’re a good match for your hotel; it also means not bidding when you’re being undercut by OTAs.
