Recently, a controversy has been raised between Google and online travel websites that looks like it will move to a bigger extent.
What is the exact problem?
Travel giants spend millions of dollars each month on Google ads. However unlike other industries, hotel and flight reservations are often made for future called booking window. Booking Window represents the number of days between when the reservation is made and the check-in or flight date.
Considering the booking window, it takes some time to return money spent on marketing for online travel agencies.
Before the Covid-19 outbreak , travel companies already made their preparations for the season, had already set their budget for their online and offline marketing and started to spend on online ads.
With the start of the epidemic, on the one hand, there was an incredible decline in new bookings. On the other hand, existing bookings started to be canceled. And put the OTA’s in difficult situation.
What do OTA’s expect from Google?
The OTA’s, which spent milions of dollars without ROI, expected postponing bill payment even discounts from Google. However they could not get a positive response from Google.
So far there is no official statement , but it seems that the objection voices of German leading companies such as GetYourGuide, Trivago and HometoGo are louder than others.
Is Google heading to be an online travel monopoly?
Google has started to focus more on the travel industry in recent years. Google travel platform launched at the beginning of the year offering flights, hotels, holiday homes, tours and activities.
The fact that Google earns from advertisements of OTA’s and rivals them through its own site creates a complex relationship, and it’s increasing share in travel market puts the search engine in the focus of criticism.
