Google Hotels Announces Free Booking Links

Google recently announced it is offering properties the ability to showcase their direct rates and availability for FREE using the Google Hotels platform.

This means potential guests will be able to search and be directed to book a room at your property from Google’s interface (specifically, Google Search, Google Maps, and in Assistant). To be clear, an advertising budget is not needed nor are there commission costs involved. Prior to this Google announcement, a property was required to sign up and pay Google using their Hotel Ads platform.

Google Hotel Ads is one of many metasearch engines allowing guests to search property availability and book direct. Another example of a popular metasearch engine is Tripadvisor’s TripConnect program. Most metasearch engines require an advertising budget to participate or charge a small commission fee (a much lower fee than most OTAs).

When potential guests are searching, Google Hotel Ads’ advertisers will show first (highlighted in green) followed by the Google Hotels partners, i.e. the free booking links (highlighted in blue).

You might be wondering, “why is Google offering this for free?” 

Short-term, it will help the search engine acquire more properties on the Google Hotels platform improving their searchers’ experience. Long-term, it will open more doors to gain Google Hotel Ads’ advertisers (assuming the free hotel booking links perform well).

To take advantage of the free hotel booking links or Google Hotel Ads platform, your PMS provider needs to be a Hotel Center partner. rezStream is excited to announce we will soon be launching the free booking links integration with Google Hotels. If you would like to be made aware of when this is available, please email us at Sales@rezStream.com.