How hotels can work alongside Google in the post-pandemic era, part one
With all the heated discussions about Google dominating travel and increasing calls by industry pundits and experts to lessen hospitality's dependency on the search giant, one thing is for certain: cash-strapped hoteliers today simply cannot just pause or abandon their marketing presence on Google.
Today, despite the crisis and all the industry sufferings, hotel marketers cannot ignore Google in the same manner as they could not have done this in any of the last 20 years.
On average, Google directly contributes, in the form of organic referrals (SEO, AMPs, Schema, content marketing, etc.) and paid/performance marketing referrals (SEM, GDN, GHA, etc.) to over 50% of direct online room nights for most hoteliers.
This does not include OTA room nights, the bulk of which come as a result of the OTA performance marketing on Google to the tune of $11 billion a year.
During the pandemic, Google has not only maintained but increased its search market share and in August 2020 Google controlled 87.3% market share in the U.S., 93.24% in Europe and 91.5% in Asia.
There are two major developments at Google that directly affect hotel marketers:
