BUSINESS
TECHNOLOGY
HOW GOOGLE CHANGED THE ONLINE TRAVEL BUSINESS
More and more, travelers are utilizing digital services to find quicker, cheaper and simpler ways to get to their preferred destinations. While the volume of bookings made online continues to grow, Google has pushed its way to the top of the travel industry. Serge Chamelian, managing partner of h-hotelier, tells us more.
Before the coronavirus, the travel industry was worth USD 1.2 trillion. It was estimated that 82 percent of all travel bookings in 2019 were made online through a website or a mobile app. Furthermore, the worldwide market volume for online hotel bookings was expected to exceed USD 810 billion by 2022, reflecting the behavior of travelers to scour the internet for the cheapest flights, the best hotels and the most popular tourist sites in their preferred destinations (source: Statistica, Skift). The search engine Google was making significant inroads, becoming integrated into travelers’ digital searches
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HOSPITALITY NEWS ME | APR - MAY 2021
and their booking activities (flight data, hotel data, integration with Uber, etc.) In fact, consumers turned to Google first to search for travel-related restrictions and/or products, especially with the establishment of Google Travel. So what is behind Google’s growth in the travel industry? The unprecedented events of 2020 and the release of new products for the hospitality sector undoubtedly helped Google become a reference for anyone planning a trip. Google invested in its own travel tools to make travelers’ endto-end experiences easier. As a result, Google is today one of the biggest players
in the online travel market, with Google Travel worth a staggering USD 100 billion. Moreover, in 2019, the travel industry spent USD 16 billion advertising on Google — the budget of booking.com alone was USD 1.19 billion.
How Google disrupted the online travel market Google acquired more and more of the search engine results page and dominated the top half of the page, minimizing the chances of travelers scrolling down for further options. Moreover, Google launched several innovations:
