Advancements to Google Places / Maps will further de-emphasize the importance of booking direct. If hotel marketers want to be part of the “Google booking game”, they must completely alter their distribution strategy to spend more money on advertising with Google.

Last week, HotelNewsNow.com’s Stacey Higgins reported live from HSMAI Europe’s Revenue Management & Internet Marketing Strategy Conference, where she listened to a presentation from Nate Bucholz, industry manager at Google. Bucholz’s main takeaway was that Google will not become an OTA, rather the search-engine giant aims to provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use experience for customers searching for hotel rooms.

“We’re not interested in taking consumers’ money directly,” he said. “We’re not going to become an OTA. We want to get the consumer to become a qualified lead.”

While this sounds all well and good for the hotel industry, it may be a little misleading. He’s accurate that Google may not directly conduct booking transactions, but in the end that doesn’t really matter for hoteliers. What really matters is that Google is in no way helping to drive bookings to the hotel website, which we all know is crucial to a successful operating model for the hotel industry. Instead it seems that advancements to Google Places will in fact de-emphasize the importance of booking direct, and, if hoteliers want to be part of the booking game, they must completely alter their distribution strategy to spend more money on advertising with Google. Get the full story on HotelNewsNow.com

With thanks to HotelMarketing.com