We’ve had three weeks or so now to get used to Google’s latest foray into the world of travel - Google Hotel Finder and it feels like a good time to reflect on what it could mean for the hotel industry.
What is it?
Google Places started out as Google Local in September 2004, which was then combined with Google Maps when that went live five months later. Listings started out as three local business listings and a map for queries that included a location, expanding to ten (the “10 pack”) in January 2008 (finally becoming the “7 pack” in October 2009).
The renamed “Places” went live in June 2009, with individual Place Pages for Google Maps rolling out in the following September.
This update also expanded the Places listings to include not only businesses but transport networks, landmarks and importantly, hotels. The expanded interface for registered users meant opportunities for optimising their listing with categories (i.e. keywords) and service areas, to show which areas your business services.
Back in 2010 Google started displaying hotel prices alongside hotel listings in Google Maps. This started out as a small test with a few advertisers in the USA and has now expanded to cover hotels across the world.
We’ve even seen hotel prices integrated into normal Search Engine Results Pages. Hotel Finder is the next logical step from these experiments and provides a bunch of new (and very useful features) when compared against Google Maps.
On the surface, it’s simple. You pick a location and the Hotel Finder presents users with a list of hotels. Make a selection and you can see attractive images of the hotel, a comment from the owner and a few reviews. This is exactly the same data as you can see in Google Places so it’s not really anything new, just a new way of showing data that’s already available.
However the real key is that Google have made all that Google Places data more searchable.
The limitation of Google Maps/Places is the fact that you have to rely on keywords to filter the results that you see.
Not so with Hotel Finder, here you’re presented with a load of tools that help you to filter out specific locations, prices, class and even user generated ratings.
Once you’ve made your decision, and just as with Hotel Ads in Google Maps and search results, a click of the “book” button displays a list of travel agents that are ranked by price.
Click on their name and you’re taken through to their booking engine with all your criteria pre-populated. It feels like a pretty seamless experience.
What are the implications?
In terms of natural search, If it's rolled out worldwide it could potentially create a very difficult landscape for businesses that resell third-party hotels, as you are currently unable to register a location more than once on Google Places.
On this basis, if a hotel owner gets there first, the travel agent can't be listed. Similarly, if a competing travel site selling the same hotel gets there first, neither the hotel owner or any other resellers would be able to generate traffic from this feature on Google.
The longer term knock-on effects could be conflicts between hotel owners, resellers, affiliates (which also sometimes 'land grab' addresses) made even more complicated when user id’s and passwords are lost / forgotten when people leave or companies go bust.
The process for retrieving these can be long and tedious, requiring proof of address and ownership which might not be valid if a hotel changes owners, changes agency or a travel agent does the same.
For the smaller players it’s also going to be tricky, as you can’t currently register individual apartments separately in the same building – it works on a first registered basis – which could be tricky in property dense cities with multiple owned apartments.
Hopefully Google will have at least considered these as issues before a global rollout and that they won’t completely wipe out natural listings for all hotel / travel related queries like Places does in other niches...
What's next?
I’ve mentioned that the data that’s displayed in Hotel Finder is exactly the same as the data that’s already visible in Google Places. Currently this is static, including images and text, but in future expect to richer content such as video, for example.
This might only be the start. Google has already launched Google Advisor. A Financial Services portal including comparison engines for Mortgages, Credit Cards, Current Accounts, Savings etc... This started with small tests in the Loans and Mortgage industries before rolling out fully. How long before we see a Flight Finder?
I also expect to see Google promoting this in the same way as other ad formats it's been experimenting with (see below). In other words, a Google Hotel Finder ad could be served up in a top ad spot that allows customers to select criteria before landing them on a relevant page. This means that Google controls the incoming site traffic and it takes away a quite clunky element of repeated keyword searches as users refine their choices.
In the mortgages example below, users are directed to the comparison engine and advertisers are charged a cost per lead for any referred traffic.
While this is only an 'experiment' right now, this move into the comparison/aggregator market represents a clear signal to hotel advertisers that they need to make sure their properties are properly optimised in Google Places if they don't want to miss out.
It's definitely one to watch in future.