Interview: Google's Head of Travel on Its Transition to Booking Site

We recently released our latest report in the Skift Trends series, Deep Dive Into Google’s Travel Ambitions. Below is an extract. Get the full report here to get ahead of this trend. When it comes to hotels, Google the search engine is transitioning toward becoming a booking platform. The nature of Google search results has changed, as well, as most organic search results have been buried below the fold. Oliver Heckmann, Google's vice president of travel, says these changes have come about because of changes in user behavior and the rise of mobile. Heckmann, a Google vet of nine years, previously was vice president of engineering for YouTube in Zurich. A year ago he took the helm of the 850-person Google Flights and Hotel Ads product teams. Heckmann gave an exclusive interview to Skift from Google’s Mountain View, California headquarters prior to the launch of Google’s new vacation-destination search. The new feature integrates flight and hotel recommendations on smartphones in a way that Google hasn’t done before. Heckmann detailed Google’s travel strategy, including for its new Book on Google functiona