Google‘s move into local deals – the Groupon clone, as some call it – is up and running with travel offers already working their way into the system.
Unveiled last week, coupons from the likes of hotels, activities and other services are now starting to appear on Google Maps this week, concentrated in major city areas in the US.
Search results for hotel-related Google Offers throws up plenty more results, with deals available outside of the US including India, Italy, Thailand and Vietnam.
Clicking on one of the offers sends the user through to to a dedicated page with details about the property or service, including a map, link to the supplier website and printing options.
Why is printing so important? The offer comes in the form of a old school cut out coupon, complete with dotted line. The discount code is also included, presumably for quoting to a call centre or entering in the discount field on the supplier’s website.
Here is an example of a hotel deal in San Diego, but doesn’t include much information about the offer:
An example of an activity offer:
And this from a hotel in Seattle, complete with multiple and specific offers and descriptions:
The question now will be to what extent travel suppliers will embrace Google Offers. Groupon has made an enormous splash in the local deals marketplace, with Travelzoo also getting in on the act.
But some are unsure over the value of working with such a model in the medium to long term, although some short term benefits around distressed inventory are what many organisations are currently doing.
Of course the entire thing could be just a simple ramping up of the old coupons system from Google, rather than the new Offers system – although the terminology being used could do with some explanation on the site.
The coupons here are non-transactional, meaning that they are more traditional pre-paid vouchers rather than the group and social buy associated with Groupons.
Watch this space…
I stuck a Coupon up a few weeks ago after seeing a local restaurant had done one – the system always said USA only – and within 24 hours my Google Places listing had disappeared. So off came the Coupon and the Places listing reappeared.
I think I’ll watch and wait on this one!
Martin, are you working through the offers tab of your Google Places account? First, I have never heard of the “USA Only” that you refer to. Second, adding a coupon helps you get your listing to 100% complete and can only help your ranking. In the hundreds of Places accounts I have setup I have never had one disappear because of a coupon.
If you are still having problems give me a call and I can walk you through it.
Good luck!
There are over 200 variables in the Google ranking algorithm, and while having a complete ‘Places’ page is a good idea, I have yet to see verifiable evidence that a fully completed places page and a bad website beat a partially completed places page and a well-ranked website. The ranking of the site compliments the places page, but the converse is not equivalent.
I agree that % complete is not a strong factor, but overall local factors outweigh traditional seo factors in determining local search results. Although Google significantly changed their local algorithm in October to include traditional SEO factors (links, page rank, anchor text, etc), the traditional local factors (reviews, citations, etc) continue to dominate. Search in any market for “hotels in…” and break down the seven pack. I have never seen an example where a property with a strong website (page rank, links, etc) ranks higher that a property with more citations and reviews (proximity to city center being equal).
In fact, yesterday I found the Grand Hotel Minneapolis ranking #5 in the local results without a website in their Google Places. Their Google Places listing is not even verified (which I agree does not impact ranking). They rank on the strength of their reviews, citations and other local factors.
If you are interested in talking more about this give me a call (407-432-7035). I’d love to learn from your experience with your properties.
The reference to only being available in the USA (or at least not the UK) was in the small print somewhere. Interestingly, I just went to find it and I now can’t see where I can add a Coupon…
I check grouponbot.com more often then I check groupon now.
Hmm pretty interesting. Would be great is G made these available via an API/feed for display in 3rd party sites.
Do wonder though what happens when I show up at the ThiĂŞn Xuân Hotel in Saigon only to find they won’t honour the coupon.
I don’t think this is Google’s GroupOn killer, these just look like typical coupons. I think they’ve been serving these for awhile.
Agreed, Jim.
The examples in this article appear to be normal Google Coupons, which can be found within Google Places on the “Offers” tab. Each business has the opportunity to add coupons to its Place Page, complete with options for printed coupons or mobile coupons. Google has been offering these for well over a year now, but they seem to be under-utilized. I added one last year for one of my clients, but never saw much success (then again, this was before the “mobile” option was available, and with the increase in mobile phone usage, this might be a viable option these days).
Nonetheless, interesting that Google’s trying to get into the coupon/offer space.
These coupons are similar to the Google Place Page coupons they offer. In addition, these coupons serve to drive traffic to the site and your phone, but do they really increase RevPAR? Our initial analysis suggests that just optimizing the site organically will draw better and more qualified traffic than Groupon or anyone else.
Unfortunately what you see here are just Google Places Page coupons. The screen shots above are views of how the existing coupons appear when someone clicks on offer from the business snipet in Google Maps.
Google has yet to unveil what their full Google Offers product will entail. However Mashable has credibly reported that “Google Offers is a new product to help potential customers and clientele find great deals in their area through a daily email.” It is also expected that all transactions must be completed through Google Checkout.
Expect to hear more from Google in the next 60 days as this product rolls out, but the final version will be significantly different than their existing coupons. However, don’t expect this to impact the travel industry. It is unlikely that hotels will embrace any concept this far outside the existing booking systems.
quick, where except Adwords does Google make money? This thing is dead as can be.
Google makes money off their display network, Google Checkout, Google Apps; I could go on. When it is launched, Google Offers will generate revenue as businesses pay Google to be included in the email offers (ie Groupon). We just have to wait for the product to be launched.
I tied Coupons a while back but got nothing from it.
Unfortunately I can’t access my Places listing to see if anything has changed, as I’m still waiting for Google to reverify it after they cocked it up. We had a good, verified listing for 2 years but in November Google scraped our B&B details off Trivago, thereby creating a duplicate listing and ensuring that our property failed to meet their own “Quality Guidelines”.
When I tried to correct this by claiming the Trivago listing and merging with my previously good listing, they suspended my Places account. It took 6 weeks to get it un-suspended and now it could take another 6 weeks to get the listing reverified. Only then will I have control and be able to correct the crappy Trivago scraped listing.
I love Google Places!
Phil
Ouch, we’ve been through a not dissimilar process with them.
I’m hoping by that that it got sorted in the end! I live in hope. Being in France we’ve got used to dealing with hopeless inefficiency so I can cope a lot better with this level of (non-) service!!