Google has been rolling out changes to its hotel search on mobile and desktop platforms as part of a broader, year-long realignment of its travel strategy.
And as the company steps up its efforts in travel-product development, we expect Google to further ramp up Google Hotels from both consumer-facing and tech-stack perspectives in a way that has parallels to what it has recently done with Google Flights.
Not everyone is happy with Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s more assertive effort to move from being a research tool to becoming even more of a booking venue.
“This is clearly a situation where Google is sucking a lot of profitability out of the travel space, not just for us, but for, frankly, for all the online travel agencies and other online players,” said Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, during an investor day presentation mid-month. Maffei’s holding company owns a controlling stake in TripAdvisor, where he serves as chairman.
Google announced a series of design changes in hotel metasearch, or comparison shopping, and most of the tweaks were for mobile users. In early November, the company said it rolled out a new front-end experience in five countries, or about 1 percent of its global users. It has not yet offered the service to U.S. mobile users.
Google’s changes this year flow from what some have claimed is a long-term trend in it de-emphasizing organic search for hotels while promoting its metasearch engine, instant booking, and Hotel Ads, which display rates and drive users to online booking engines.
A Google spokesperson said, “We are absolutely not de-emphasizing organic search. With hotel search, it’s our goal to help users get the information they need about hotels as quickly and easily as possible.”
“The vast majority of clicks within the hotel search unit are free,” adds the spokesperson. “For example, a click to see photos of amenities, a click to see directions, a click on the phone number, or a click on the hotel website itself. And we believe that this organic information is beneficial for both users and advertisers: users have the information they need to make a more informed decision, and hotel advertisers get a more qualified lead, which is likely to lead to increased bookings.”
What follows are highlights of design tweaks and broader changes at Google Hotels over the past several months.
