Google's New Hotel Search Is a Greater Threat to Booking Rivals
Skift Take
When it comes to Google and its hotels redesign, few things are all or nothing. TripAdvisor can worry that Google now has more traveler photos and reviews, but some of them are from TripAdvisor. Hotel websites and phone numbers get featured, but clicking on a book button brings customers to an online travel agency site. In travel, it's never winner take all.
Why ever stop searching for travel on Google and turn to a hotel or online travel agency site when you can book your hotel right there without leaving Google?
Booking hotels worldwide on Google just became more prominent on its U.S. site in a redesign of Google hotels on desktop that the company announced Wednesday in a blog post. Google plans to roll out the redesign, which was introduced on mobile earlier this year, worldwide in phases.
In the past couple of years, Google has experimented with taking hotel bookings on behalf of online travel agency or hotel partners, but you would have to search for hours to find such an instance. Otherwise, you would more commonly click over to a partner site to complete a booking. The feature was introduced in 2015.
But in a redesign of the entire Google hotel search — and booking — experience there are multiple displays in the course of browsing for hotels where you can find the Google booking feature.
In fact, if you book a hotel on Google, you can now even contact Google via an online form if you have a problem. You can see the details of how Google says booking hotels on on its sites works in a PDF we posted below.
When you search Google for Rio de Janeiro hotels and click on Days Inn Rio de Janeiro, you can select your dates and click over to an online travel agency site to book a room, but there is also an advertisement from Booking Holdings company Agoda, with photos and rates for a superior twin room, superior d
