New Research: European Hotel Search Behavior

Over the past two years, Near Media has observed how thousands of consumers use Google to choose local businesses across a diverse set of categories, including healthcare, legal, and storage. Aggregating the results of these consumer journeys has been a fascinating exercise in each category, but none more so than our recent look at how 300 European consumers chose hotel rooms.

We asked a panel of 100 residents each from Germany, France, and Spain to book a hotel room in either Rome or Paris for an upcoming long weekend. We pre-loaded the Google.com homepage in their browser and asked them to narrate their experience in their native language as they browsed and clicked through live Google search results, including the results they were most drawn to and the elements of those results.

While we didn’t want consumers to make fraudulent reservations, we asked each participant which hotel they’d choose to book with and why in order to complete the exercise.

We published our complete findings in September as part of a two-part series:

1. Google and Booking: The Symbiotic Gatekeeper Relationship in European Hotel Search

2. Search Marketing Implications for European Hotel Suppliers

We’re grateful for the opportunity to share some of the highlights with the SEOFOMO community below.

Google’s compliance with the Digital Markets Act in the Hotel vertical appears questionable at best.

While Google asserts that the prominent positioning given to the new Places Sites module puts it in compliance with the Digital Markets Act’s provision against self-preferencing, it received almost no consumer engagement – just 2% of all clicks on search results where it was visible to consumers. 

While Google positions the Places Sites element in the top two organic results for a broad range of queries, its own Hotel Finder–made up of a compelling map interface and embedded Google Business Profiles–enjoys even more consistent placement in the top two results, and in our study earned over 50% of all clicks when it was visible to consumers. 

While search refinement chips driving consumers deeper into the Google Hotel Finder (Top Rated, Lodging, and more) received clicks from only 14.6% of participants, the Places Sites refinement chip–the other key part of Google’s DMA compliance effort–received clicks from 0 of our 300 participants.

It seems to us that in order to truly comply with the DMA’s provision against self-preferencing, from an engagement standpoint, non-Google results should be at least as compelling to the typical searcher as its own results. The occasional positioning of an unappealing new element above Google’s own Hotel Finder results does not constitute compliance.

Hotels is surely one of Google’s best-monetized search verticals.

While the Hotel Finder was less visible to Hotel searchers than the analogous Local Pack has been in other verticals we’ve tested, the reason for its diminished visibility was simply that consumers didn’t scroll past the top-of-page ads at nearly the same frequency.

In our Hotels research, Ads received a majority of all mobile consumer clicks, and 48% of all consumer journeys included at least one click on an Ad unit. This is a considerably higher percentage than we’ve found in any other vertical.

Booking.com–another gatekeeper subject to the Digital Markets Act–was the primary ad click destination. While consumers conducted a significant number of brand searches for Booking, and clicked plenty of its organic results, nearly ⅔ of Booking’s traffic came from paid clicks. From a percentage standpoint, this pattern held true for other Aggregators as well, but Booking’s market position clearly enables it to outbid the competition for most hotel queries.

While Google can credibly argue that consumers are seeking out Booking results when they’re looking for a hotel, its finely-tuned monetization of Hotel searches likely makes the company averse to significant user experience changes in this vertical, even if required by the DMA. Both Google and Booking are happy with the symbiotic relationship.

How can hotel chains best compete in this ecosystem?

Only about a quarter of all clicks in the Hotel vertical went to organic results – consumers were far more likely to click Google’s own Business Profiles or Ads. And over half the time what they saw was disqualifying for the property–the potential journey to that particular property stopped at the Google Business Profile. 

A given hotel likely won’t get the chance to convince consumers to book on its own website, and needs to put its best foot forward with its Google Business Profile. This suggests a strong need to practice ongoing GBP optimization – active review solicitation, photo optimization, review responses, and more.

On the Ads front, we suggest hotel chains pilot the same landing page strategy we saw from Booking.com and other Aggregators for clicks coming from Carousel Ads or the Google Business Profile booking section. 

Aggregators typically send ads to a list-style landing page featuring the property being advertised–increasing the odds that a visitor will find a property they are interested in booking, even if not the same property they initially clicked on from Google.

Instead of sending consumers to a dedicated landing page for the property being advertised, consider sending them to a list of results featuring the advertised property at the top.

Booking.com in particular used this strategy to great effect: dozens of our consumers ended up choosing a room on Booking, but at a different property than the one they were initially attracted to on Google.

Conclusion

We share a lot more data about how consumers choose hotels, including the attributes that matter most, the types of photos they’re most drawn to, how the median review count and rating varies by aggregator and the Google Hotel Finder, and more, in Part II of our original publication.

It’s clear to us that based on how Google constructs its search results today, Google itself and Booking are the clear winners in European hotel search, with hoteliers of all sizes getting squeezed by both gatekeepers. 

Even if well-ranked by Google’s organic algorithm, in Google’s current hotel SERP construction it’s unlikely consumers ever encounter a Supplier website in a hotel search journey, given the positional and visual dominance of Booking ads and the Google Hotel Finder.

Guest contribution by David Mihm, co-founder of Near Media.

As a co-founder of Near Media, David advises clients and publishes analysis of local search dynamics.

Known for his expertise in local SEO, David has been a sought-after speaker at major industry conferences including SMX Advanced Berlin, Mozcon, and more. David co-founded LocalU with Mike Blumenthal, and his career includes significant contributions as VP Product Strategy at ThriveHive (2018-2020) and as product architect of Moz Local after his venture, GetListed.org, was acquired by Moz in 2012. He also founded Tidings, an innovative email newsletter service acquired by DemandScience in 2021.

Beyond his professional endeavors, David supports diverse entrepreneurs through Prosper Portland’s Mercatus program and as a past board member of MercyCorps Northwest and SEMpdx, Portland’s search marketing organization, reflecting his commitment to local and digital marketing communities.