A fascinating look into Google's hotel ecosystem

How the search giant is facilitating a shift back to direct bookings while still reaping the rewards of the billions of ad dollars still coming in from Booking, Expedia

Google Hotels is the largest and most comprehensive metasearch engine in travel. Skift Research did an analysis of thousands of hotel listings on Google to learn how OTAs and hotels are bidding for bookings.

But for the big legacy OTAs, Booking and Expedia, this fragmentation is bad because it means more competition. And Booking, Expedia would rather have a more consolidated space, which they lead as a duopoly, rather than seeing all this re-fragmentation in the industry.

Key takeaways

• Examining the Google sponsored results reveals that Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, along with their sub-brands, not only dominate these results but are also significantly dependent on Google;
• In the US, Booking and Expedia have an 80% share of sponsored results. Notably, Booking.com appears most frequently, indicating that it invests the most to secure prominent placement in these paid results;
• However, if you look at the organic results, which are free to list, you'll see a more democratized landscape. This means that smaller OTAs and direct sites are gaining more prominence on Google. This suggests that Google recognizes and values direct sites as a better option for booking hotels;
• For Booking and Expedia, however, this fragmentation is unfavorable as it leads to increased competition. Both prefer a more consolidated market where they dominate as a duopoly, rather than face the refragmentation of the industry.

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