Google’s move to enable direct hotel bookings now fully operational
“We’re evolving the way our hotel search works on smartphones.”
Google’s strategic development to enable booking hotels direct has been activated, the search giant has now added a destination site for hotels. This will replicate what it has already done through Google Flights offering hotels as a natural extension of the travel process.
Google’s VP of product management, Richard Holden elaborated on some of the functionality in Google Flights and Hotels in a blog published just over a week ago.
He set out that the ongoing development of the new product has been progressing for approximately a year, now enabling a fully operational site from hotel searches. Here’s the options for booking a hotel in London today.
The director of travel product management at Google, Eric Zimmerman said: “We’re evolving the way our hotel search works on smartphones to help users explore options and make decisions on their smallest screens. The new hotel search experience includes better price filtering, easier-to-find amenity information and the ability to book right from Google.”
As Google today maintains being the first port of call for 90% of searches for anything and everything on the planet, the progression to further monetise hotel bookings worldwide does seem a good fit for Google. Established hotel booking sites would seem to have some cause for concern.