Booking.com Tests Native Ads for Hotels in Destination Searches

Online Travel This Week

The competition to gain or recoup revenue from ad placements in search results on online travel agency websites is heating up with Booking.com testing native ad placements for hotels in Booking’s destination searches.

In reporting on Booking’s beta test, hotel digital marketer Mirai wrote that Booking.com is seeking to counter some of the advertising competition.

Online travel agencies from Expedia to Booking and eDreams Odigeo are all seeking to gain a greater share of hotels’ marketing budgets as Google and Facebook/Instagram command advertising dollars.

“As Google and other travel big players such as Tripadvisor (with Plus and Sponsored Placements) are increasing competition with OTAs [online travel agencies], native ads allow Booking.com to fight back and enter in the marketing placements’ business. The best defense is a good attack.”

Booking has long had an accelerator program, enabling hotels to promote and place their listings higher in Booking.com search results. The new native ad program, which is undergoing a limited beta, goes beyond that and so far, according to Mirai, it enables properties to take the second position in destination search results.

So this cost-per-click bidding model would enable hotels to place their listing, which is labeled as an ad, in the second position after consumers search for things such as “Boston hotels,” and not queries for “the Sheraton Boston.” In the tests seen so far, according to the digital marketing company, hotels do not have an option to link from Booking.com to their own websites.

Booking Holdings generated $1.1 billion in its advertising and and other revenue category in pre-pandemic 2019, and that was only about 7.4 percent of the company’s total revenue. Booking would assuredly like to increase that percentage.

Expedia launched its own accelerator program a few years ago and offers a variety of sponsored placements, as does Tripadvisor, which has been making a push toward sponsored placements, and attracting advertisements from companies beyond the travel sector.

In related news, Tripadvisor’s tours and activities brand, Viator, is expanding its own Viator Accelerator beta, according to Arival. As with Expedia and Booking, Viator’s accelerator enables tour operators, in this case, to boost their presence by paying a higher commission.

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