CEO and Project Manager
August 30, 2016
Let’s think about the last time we booked a hotel. Did we go directly to the hotel’s website? Did we visit a local travel agency? No, we didn’t. We went to Google and conducted a search to make comparisons. We’re sure that’s not always the case, but Google is more likely to be the place where travelers begin their hotel booking process, even more so with Google Hotel Ads.
57% of leisure and business travelers say they always start their travel booking process with searches, according to a Google study conducted by Ipsos MediaCT . Everyone we know discovers hotel options by browsing search engines, whether it's Google or Bing.
Hotel marketers were thrilled after Google announced its new tool, Google My Business , which allows hotels to improve their presence on Google.
Google recently announced that list of germany consumer email they are continuing to work on making the hotel booking process more seamless for both consumers and advertisers. “We’ve evolved the way hotels appear in Google search results by including more structured, relevant, and dynamic information – such as ratings, availability, locations, user reviews, editorial descriptions, Google Street View, and high-resolution photos,” says Google. They clearly aren’t kidding!
Table of Contents [ Hide ]
1 Introducing new and improved Hotel Ads
2 So what's new?
3 And what does this mean for hotel marketers?
Introducing new and improved Hotel Ads
Google announced improvements to Hotel Ads, an ad format exclusively for hotel marketers. These ads basically display detailed information to compare hotels in a region right on the search results page . Let’s look at the example below that we got when we performed a Google search for “hotels in Boston.” As you can see, each hotel displays information such as prices, reviews and ratings, special offers, and photos.
When we click on “More hotels” we can see where each hotel is located on the map.
Hotel Ads is not something completely new. Hilton has been using this tool for its 4,200 hotels since 2011, and has seen groundbreaking results, with a 45% increase in conversion rates.
So what's up?
Hotel Ads may have been around for a while, but Google continues to improve the tools offered to marketers, with a heavy focus on engaging followers in a more visual way. In February, Google improved its photo tool to allow hotels to change the image that appears when travelers search for them. They’ve also made it possible to add photos specifically for food and drink, rooms, and common areas. All of this can be done through your Google My Business account .
