Google Is Testing Vacation Rental Search in Its Hotel Price-Comparison Tool
Skift Take
In tests involving about 7,000 property listings in Europe, Google is checking if travelers would like to use it to search and book vacation rentals. Online travel rivals should be on the alert.
In the past month, some Google searches have been revealing an option to comparison-shop vacation rentals.
In our checks Tuesday, Skift could find vacation rental filters for Barcelona, Berlin, Bordeaux, Cologne, Dresden, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Madrid, Munich, Milan, Naples, Nice, Nuremberg, Paris, Palermo, Porto, Reims, Rome, Seville, and Venice.
The results are limited to a small subset of alternative lodging inventory similar to traditional vacation rentals. Collectively we counted about 7,000 property listings. That is a mere smattering of the potential rental listings in Europe.
Our search Tuesday of google.com and google.co.uk for the term "hotels in Paris" unveiled the option to filter the results by choosing "vacation rental" from a drop-down menu for "accommodation type."
In the Paris example, applying that filter turned up only 420 apartments — a sliver of the more than 50,000 available for rent in that city according to short-term rental leader Airbnb.
Doing a search on a straightforward phrase like "vacation rentals in Paris" didn't turn up the feature. Only searching for a phrase like "hotels in Paris" cued the search box to appear.
Google is doing the test in multiple markets, too. A search on French site google.fr for "hôtel à Paris" found similar results. A search on German site google.de found results for vacation rentals, or Ferienwohnungen, too.
It is a cross-device test, too. We saw the option to have vacation rental filters o
