Articles tagged “google”

Google is making it easier for travel shoppers to find and use its flight or hotel search through some design changes rolling out in the coming weeks. Watch out, Kayak and Skyscanner. Airlines and hotels will have to pay attention, too.

As we've noted before, as much as hotels and online travel agencies may not necessarily love one another, they certainly need each other. Their current love-hate relationship will certainly change, however, if and when other players like Airbnb or Google become bigger players in the hotel booking space.

Little can stop Google Flights and Hotels from continuing to take market share because of Google’s speedy response time, enhanced focus on user experience, and position as a dominant search engine — except the looming threat of regulation.

From brands as experience platforms to strategic mergers, diversity messaging and beyond: These are the Megatrends in travel we're watching closely in 2018.

Might 2018 be the year U.S. regulators take a hard look anew at Google's travel-business practices after declining to take action in 2012? We hope so, in the interests of fair play, although the Trump Administration has been keen to reduce government regulation of businesses, not increase it.

The big chains now offer special book-direct deals through Google Hotel Ads. This helps with click-through and conversions, but also with new loyalty member acquisition — everything a growing hotel chain needs in an ad partner.

Without question, Google will continue to aggressively grow its multi-billion dollar advertising business by securing stronger direct relationships with both the supplier and the traveler.

Tours-and-activities startups will be eager to see if in-destination apps from giants such as Google, Airbnb, and TripAdvisor will succeed in providing cost-effective customer leads.

The largest hotel chains and online travel agencies have deals on paid search marketing practices that effectively trim their ad spend on Google. But smaller players remain unprotected from tough marketing tactics.

Google wants consumers to buy more travel on it. That may prompt industry players to closely patrol the gray line between the search giant referring more customers to them and Google becoming customers' first choice for booking trips.