New Google Hotel Finder Format

[Jason Price]

In the latest developments of Google Hotel Finder, Google recently launched a new format that includes two updates worth noting.

 

THE FIRST update includes up to six paid advertisers on Hotel Finder. Two advertisers visibly appear as buttons at the top (formerly only one) and there are up to four in the drop down (formerly only three). Therefore, the bidding model appears to be expanding to include more advertisers. While Google has not reported the format as a permanent fix, it seems that this may be a way to overcome the challenges for hotels who are unable to get on a level playing field that was built for four advertisers only. While enlarging the playing field is helpful for hotels to compete, it still does not address the continued gaming by the online travel agencies. We continue to see OTAs display rates, taxes, and or fees that in total are less than the hotel. Some OTAs have been even bolder by taking special weekend rates and averaging them out to be less than the hotel's one night stay, disregarding parity outright. These "games" will continue to compromise the user experience, something that Google has been attempting to resolve for about two years. Perhaps Google should consider taking a page from Trivago, an overseas CPC Meta partner. Trivago's mantra is to recognize that there is no way hotels can reasonably compete with the OTAs and is therefore given preferential treatment by being automatically placed in either positions one or two from the top. This only applies to hotels with a direct connect (all HeBS Digital clients have the direct connect). 

 

THE SECOND update is the display of different room types in Hotel Finder. If you examine the various tabs of the hotel profile you will notice one labeled "Rooms". Presently the Rooms tab displays a person icon to signify the number of adults, room description, and a button to click on rate to purchase (room images will come later). For the time being it appears that only Booking.com and now Expedia are the only OTAs feeding this content. Hotels face the hurdle of cleaning up the language in the CRS to make the content display in consumer-friendly language. We are helping some brands convert XXDBLEWINVIE to read "Two adults double-bed with window view." (If only we all spoke CRS language). If anyone has experience in either of these two recent updates, please share with the Hotel Finder Google Group, we would all appreciate the insight. Thanks, Jason Price.   

[Anamika Arora]

Does this new format applicable for all hotel i.e. 1 star to 5 star hotels.???