Why Google will not become a booking engine

By Steve Keenan

How we book hotels and travel continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

So much so that Google now no longer refers to ‘mobile devices,’ preferring instead to say desktop and non-desktop (eg., mobile, tablet and any other portable bit of kit).

In an interview yesterday at Google’s London HQ, Industry head of Travel, Nigel Huddleston, elaborated on the new distinction.

Desktop is really for booking a holiday. And the latest Google research shows that we now surf 26 sites on average, over a 60-day period, spending nearly five hours online. “It is a real mix, with people bouncing back and forth,” said Huddleston, who has particular responsibility at Google for hotels.

But non-desktop is a whole new ball game. That’s for spontaneity, for hotels and tours, and increasingly for flights. When it comes to hotels, two-thirds of hotel bookings are for within 24 hours of arrival.

24 hours!

It’s a trend that is escalating fast. And it means that hotel chains and online travel agents (not Google: “We are NOT into the booking space,” insists Huddleston) are having to adapt sites for mobile (sorry, non-desktop) FAST.

And they are responding. A year ago, Huddleston revealed that only 17% of Google’s top 500 hotel clients had a mobile-enabled site. While not giving a precise figure now, he said there had been a rapid upscaling of mobile site in the past year.

But once the hotel providers bring their mobile sites up to date, is it then all about price? Will it just be the hotel or OTA that can shave a pound or two off rival prices?

Not necessarily, according to Huddleston. The ‘silver bullet,’ he says, is loyalty programmes, such as Hotels.com which offers one free night for every 10 bookings, or Starwood’s rewards programme.

As with airline programmes, loyalty schemes still hold a lot of sway with customers who want something back for free. As coffee chains or bookstores have realized.

Besides loyalty programmes, content remains a key component of swinging a booking. Because once you have price parity, and should customers not want to be beholden to one supplier with the promise of something for free at a later stage, then what will nail down the sale?

Video of the hotel, images shown large on a screen and, of course, reviews are key factors in helping people decide. And maps.

Which is where Google is strongly poised to be part of the research process. Its maps are increasingly sophisticated (check out the inside floor plans of the British Museum on Android devices), its reviews are becoming more exhaustive and images/video (it owns YouTube) are de rigeur.

Google Hotel Finder is designed to be a one-stop-shop for accommodation planning, and the company makes its money by selling keywords and ads played on YouTube videos. Being a Google hotel partner also gives the option of embedding links into the videos.

Google says it will not be part of the actual booking process. But with fierce competition in that sector, why bother?

Google can afford to sit back, develop its own products and be confident that it has desktop, and non-desktop, covered.