Did Google just take a monster step towards becoming an OTA?

There's been a lot of press the past couple days on Google's licensing deal with Room 77.  Some articles have been a bit bold in claiming that Google is entering the hotel booking business as an OTA. This would actually mean Google itself is transacting hotel bookings, which doesn't seem to be the case (just yet?).

There's also been a lot of hype over the big increase in Google's hotel content (photos, reviews, etc.) to make its search results resemble those of Priceline and Expedia, for example.  If I'm not mistaken though, this is part of a larger initiative to increase local business content across the board and isn't focused exclusively on hotels just for the sake of making them more bookable on Google search results.

But one thing is for sure . . . the more enhanced content Google adds, the more likely customers may begin their hotel search on Google versus the OTA sites.  And with the addition of Room 77's extensive database of hotel level information such as room views and floor plans, as well as its advanced hotel search algorithms, Google just may have made its biggest step yet in possibly becoming a full end-to-end hotel search and booking engine (and in the process eventually trumping TripAdvisor and OTAs).

I remain doubtful Google would get that low in the purchase funnel though.  My guess is they are amassing the best possible content at the hotel level in a drive to become the undisputed starting point for consumers doing a hotel search.  Over time, Google's hotel search volumes will increase, and if they can simultaneously ramp up ad spending from the non usual suspects (i.e. more hotels spending on adwords and not just the OTAs), it's plain simple math Google can squeeze billions more out of the travel vertical than it already makes today.

For now though, I can't help but wonder how Priceline and Expedia, some of Google's biggest adwords customers, feel about Google's licensing deal with Room 77 and what that might foreshadow.

I can't wait for more Google photo spheres when shopping for hotels and vacation rentals

I'm loving the high resolution 360 degree photo spheres that Best Western and Radisson are deploying on Google search, hotel finder, and maps.  Although this media still carries a hotelier's slant, the interactive richness gives viewers a much more spatial sense of hotel interiors over static photos.

Since I started working in hotels in 2006, I've always had this dream of taking photos of the interior space and external views of every hotel room in the world, and then organizing them so anyone could search through them to find the perfect room.  Clearly this was just a little itty-bitty dream . . .

A few sites like TripAdvisor or FlyerTalk let users search for and post individual room photos and views.  But finding high resolution photos of individual rooms on these sites is like rummaging through a junkyard for discarded computers with Bitcoins.

Then along came Room 77, a travel meta search site that aimed to create a search and review site aimed solely on individual hotel rooms.  They claimed to showcase the view of each guestroom from hundreds of hotels around the world.  My initial excitement for this site quickly wore off when I saw photo after photo of grainy low resolution approximations calculated using Google Earth.

Room 77's grainy room views, but super helpful floorplans

Just for kicks and giggles, I started my own Blogger site where I would share panoramic room views from the hotel rooms I would stay in.  Definitely not scalable, but just a pet hobby of mine to satisfy a guilty pleasure.

But if there's any company that can pull off my itty-bitty dream of organizing photo spheres of all the world's hotel rooms and panoramics of their views, it's most definitely Google.  And that's why I'm looking forward to more independent and chain hotels following the lead of Best Western's 2,200 North American properties and adding interior photo spheres to Google search.  This would be great for hotels that have unique spaces including wedding venues, fitness centers, and spas.  It would be a first of its kind for hotel shoppers who want the perfect room in that perfect hotel.  But this super rich content could potentially be the defining advantage Google hotel finder has over other travel meta search sites and OTAs to win hotel search volume and CPC spend.

Google and Room77 shouldn't have all the fun though.  HotelTonight is already leading the way in crowd sourcing mobile photos from individual rooms.  And I have no doubt that photo spheres and corresponding floor plans would improve the shopping experience on Airbnb listings above and beyond the positive impact their professional photography program has already made on average nightly rates and conversion . . . especially for larger, upscale, or uniquely designed one-of-a-kind spaces.

Seriously, could you imagine 360 degree tours (and floor plans) of all these ridiculously quirky Top 40 Airbnb picks?!?

What TripAdvisor can teach independent hotels about shifting share from OTAs

A big score for independent hotels (and of course TripAdvisor)

There's certainly no shortage of activity coming from TripAdvisor.  The company recently shifted some focus to metasearch, redesigned its site, acquired content-rich Oyster.com, and launched the independent hotels' newest best friend . . . TripConnect.

TripConnect is a new service that empowers indie hotels like never before when it comes to online marketing and driving direct sales and bypassing OTAs.  These smaller properties can now integrate their web booking engine to TripAdvisor's metasearch, and thus display live rates and availabilities for shoppers who perform a dated search.  By combining the hotel's presence on TripAdvisor metasearch with the right room pricing and bidding strategies, the savvy indie hotel operator can take the first series of steps in winning back channel share from OTAs.  And as OTA click through and conversion rates decline for a particular hotel, they just might scale back their own bidding and thus reduce marketing costs for the indie operator in the long term.

But what about Google?  For those indie hotel operators that have AdWords campaigns running already, should they be plugging into TripConnect and shifting marketing spend to TripAdvisor?  In general it's a wise approach to diversify and spend on both Google and TripAdvisor.  After all, TripAdvisor is one hell of a strong brand, but there are areas in the world where their name is virtually unknown.  So answering this question in detail really depends on the hotel product, destination, and its primary source markets.

But one thing is for sure.  Because TripAdvisor's metasearch allows for dated searches and the new TripConnect service plugs directly into indie hotels' booking engines, there is no wasted ad spend on dates that are unavailable because it wouldn't be possible for the shopper to click through in the first place.

Furthermore, TripAdvisor creates a smoother shopping experience (from research to price shopping) which should ultimately lead to a more highly qualified customer.  In the e-commerce world of performance marketing, that usually translates into much better conversions.

TripConnect offers a number of other added benefits, but at the end of the day it all boils down to one thing.  Independent hotels now have the most powerful tool to help them claw back bookings from high cost OTA distribution channels.  The fact that it's more effective than Google AdWords or Hotel Finder is just icing on the cake.

Google.  It's your move now.

Example of TripConnect in action.  Although in this case HotelClub's lower price is undermining the hotel's efforts.