Google Adding 21 AccorHotels Brands to Its Instant Booking Product

AccorHotels, which is Google’s largest hotel customer outside the U.S., plans to let guests of its 21 brands book on Google without having to navigate to Accor websites.

Unlike other properties that are beginning to participate in Book on Google through third parties such as Sabre, Accor has established a direct-connect to Google to facilitate customer bookings in Google search, Google Maps and Google+, says Markus Keller, AccorHotels’ deputy senior vice president of its global sale division.

AccorHotels’ brands include Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, Ibis and 16 others. It is the largest hotel chain in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

AccorHotels’ addition to Google booking shows that brands will employ a variety of ways to connect to the Google booking feature, which gives guests the convenience of paying through Google Wallet and not having to repeatedly enter their credit card information. Customers can also book on Google platforms without having to take the additional step of navigating to the hotel website.

Accor also participates in TripAdvisor Instant Booking. About one third of the hotels on TripAdvisor, or some 235,000 properties, can now be booked on TripAdvisor.

Through Book on Google and TripAdvisor Instant Booking hotel brands pay much lower commission than they do to the large online travel agency duopoly, Expedia Inc. and Booking.com.

TripAdvisor has scaled up Instant Booking fairly rapidly. Google addition of AccorHotels’ brands shows that Google can do likewise.