The web giant announced its partnership with the German Peakwork to improve its hotel booking services in Europe.
Google, which already suggests hotels through its search engine, moves ahead in the room booking process.
While it makes it possible to compare hotel prices within a defined perimeter, the search engine currently redirects users to websites of OTA et de l’établissement la réservation de la chambre.
Is Google becoming an OTA?
The service Book on Google (BoG) allows users to not go to a third-party website and instead allows them to book directly within the Google interface and environment Google. Symbol of the strength of the universe of the American group, Google customers who already have an account don’t need to ré-entre their data – the search engine does that for them while simplifying the reservation process.
To launch itself on the European market, Google signed a partnership with Peakwork, a travel technology firm based in Düsseldorf that has a mission to provide connectivity between the different markets.
Google thus moves to a new level in Europe with hotel reservations. David Kong, CEO Best Western, indicated at the last Worldwide Hospitality Awards: “If you look at the figures, I think OTAs are afraid of GAFAs. In the USA, 70% of the richest households have Amazon Prime. If you look at the whole country one out of two households have Amazon Prime. You can then imagine how powerful they are. If they choose to enter the hotel market and become a market place they could easily do it. So, I think it’s not if Amazon goes in but when Amazon goes in. Their CEO has already said: they want to sell everything.”
