Google has recently launched an initiative that not only represents an important communication lever for the world of tourism, but it also represents an important push to those engines that in the past months have ridiculed Google itself with antitrust charges. From today, in fact, the engine will offer the possibility of appearing totally free in the hotel booking links, “with a more complete series of options to consult, useful for choosing where to make their reservation“.
Google.com/travel
The free positioning within a real vertical search engine, in short, for an initiative that was born exactly one year from the beginning of the first national lockdown. An event in itself symbolic, therefore, explained by Google itself:
When you can return to travel, it will be essential to allow people to find the information they are looking for and to allow them to easily get in touch with online travel agencies. For many years we have been helping travelers choose the hotel that best suits their needs by providing a list of relevant properties, along with information such as reviews, photos and hotel amenities. Hotel booking links have been made available through Hotel Ads, allowing you to view real-time prices and availability for specific selected dates. We have found that people find these booking links very useful and partners find them a valuable source for intercepting potential customers. Now we want to improve this experience even further and starting this week we will be making free for hotels and travel companies around the world the ability to appear in hotel booking links, directly at google.com/travel.
Here is the reference: google.com/travel. The novelty will have clear implications on the way in which hotels will bring their communication channels online (with indirect repercussions also on direct traffic and on the possibility of directly monetizing incoming users) and will allow Google to collect a high number of information that can be managed both for one's own strategies and to offer users the maximum possible choice. A service that is born, not surprisingly, at the worst possible moment for the world of hospitality: within a few months the vaccination campaigns will remove the desire to travel all over the world and at that point Google will immediately want to be the new point of reference for information, reservations and travel planning.
Will the free access be enough to safeguard Google from new screening by the European Commission? The nerve is uncovered and it is not difficult to imagine new arrows against Mountain View from the booking services.
Google Travel: Dream your trip and book your hotel
