UPDATE: Pegasus Solutions confirms that it has been testing and will soon release a new product, MetaSearch Services, which would enable hotels to more readily participate on major travel metasearch sites.
Pegasus states: “The new Google Hotel Price Ads program is a great way for hotels to capture direct bookings on their web sites. In a way, Google has incorporated hotel metasearch functionality into their core search processes by allowing entry of arrival and departure dates and deep linking to an OTA or hotel web site. Hotels need to be participating so that consumers have a choice of booking through an OTA or direct with the hotel.
“Pegasus is just announcing a similar product called MetaSearch Services (MSS) that enables hotels to participate in this manner with traditional metasearch sites, such as Kayak and others. Early results have shown as much as a 5:1 return on investment from pilot customers.â€
The original post follows:
Google is continuing its drive to get hotel-direct pricing into Google Maps and is working with Pegasus Solutions to up the ante.
Pegasus provides hotel distribution services to more than 86,000 properties and its data would enable Google to display room pricing from hotel websites, along with already-presented hotel pricing from online travel agencies, in Google Maps, according to Travel Weekly (US).
Currently, hotel displays alongside Google Maps indicate the hotel pricing from OTAs, but although hotel website links are displayed, too, there usually is no room price listed.
As reported several weeks ago, hotel CRS provider Trust International also is working with Google to get hotel pricing into Google Maps and Google Places.
Travel Weekly also reports that Pegasus expects to soon announce a metasearch solution for hotel pricing, as well.
Will definitely need to keep watching this space –
Wondering if this represents a change to the standard Pegasus business practice of ensuring that bookings are not made out of channel for sites that access rates & availability, or are Google Maps / Places Pages / Organic Results simply treated like any other online ADS website to solely support booking from the owner website?
Also, love the image for InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta that highlights a rate parity issue. Note that Booking.com listed the rate as $1 lower than other sites.
In this case, it is not tax calculation as all these rates are tax exclusive and the best available rate on the IHG website is exactly $152.00.
Expect the hotels to start policing this more aggressively, and potentially rely on single Google Places page scans to simplify policing of rate parity issues among major OTAs.
My guess is that Google will get a lot of feedback from travelers wanting to have tax & fee inclusive total rates to aid in comparison shopping (for example, Kayak includes the total price for comparison purposes.)
Other interesting aspect is if owner listings are provided on gratis basis and 3rd party ads are paid. With hotel rate parity agreements in place with OTAs, the share shift to brand/property direct could be highly accretive to hotel revenues – triggering strong Google Places support from hoteliers.
Of course, with large merchant margins available, OTAs will have $$ available to bid for top ad placement. Under rate parity however, will customer behavior indicate that visitors prefer to select the top choice on the list, book through a favorite OTA further down the list, or direct with the merchant at the same price?
However it turns out, there are going to be winners & losers in this game, with Google winning pretty much any way it turns out.
I predict this topic will get very interesting as it matures.
I find this solution quite elegant, actually.
Agents can pay to get the clicks, but the hotel owner gets clicks for free.
Too bad the “Tax Recovery Charges & Service Fee” is not included in the Google pricing. This way Google gets 3 or 4 clicks per hotel, if the user tries all prices.
@Daniele – Totally agree.
I think Google will push for total pricing based on user input.
The good news is that this shows that Google is not only adept at the technology side when it comes to travel, but they are also working very hard on the business side to create a product that appeases issues raised by most constituencies…
Gives one hope that with the ITASoftware acquisition, Google can also provide an “elegant” solution to satisfy the various constituencies. Well, realistically, that may not be possible even if an optimum solution was created as the goal of some parties is to keep Google out of the game.
I wonder how the hoteliers will feel about any full, tax inclusive price being included. The OTAs are generally applying tax to the negotiated rate and thus without modification tax inclusive can be lower-priced via an OTA.
Optimistically it represents a chance to police on true pricing. Or to reinforce that if one wants the low floor, terrible view then one should book through an OTA. If not, book direct or through an operator.
@Dan @ Robert – no one gets clicks for free – not the hotel, and neither the OTA. Everyone pays and pays equally… to begin with.
And just to be sure: Pegs is doing this for the CRS customers, not for all their switch customers. It’s the equivalent deal that Trust has.
(Pegs – we know you’re reading so, can you confirm or correct this?)
The Pegs MSS product being talked of above is different, although they will use the same infrastructure to push rates to Google as they are offering to push to Kayak. And 5 to 1 return is pretty much the same as an OTA booking.
If only hotels would be satisfied with a 5 to 1 return from their website, like they are with OTA bookings! That they wold build up someone else’s brand for a 5 to 1 return amazes me, when they are unwilling to pay that much to generate the bookings from their brand website.
Thanks Gautam,
I stand corrected on my gratis comment above – it didn’t make any sense to me that it would be free, but that was exactly what a contact with a hotel company told me. I guess my follow-up question “Wow, are you sure it’s free?” was a bit too ambiguous… when he replied “Yes.”
Also, to clarify my comment, re: Kayak, they also provide a little information icon that some hotels use to identify the rate includes taxes & fees or another for estimated totals that may vary when the user hits the destination site. It will be very interesting to see how Google’s ad-based comparative shopping works out when someone searches a Las Vegas Casino and discovers that $20/night in resort fees may be included in some listings and not others.
Does anyone have further information on how this project stands? I really would like to see this product and/or participate with our hotels in the test phase if it is not finished yet
We use MyFidelio for all GDS conections (via Pegasus Switch) but our Internet Booking Engine is independently developed therefore not “powered by” MyFidelio or any other major CRS. Can that be a barrier of any participation in Meta Search Service project?