Google Introducing Promoted Hotels Booking Ads
Photo by doistrakhFollowing on the existing Google Hotel Finder, it appears that Google is now adding functionality to its Google Adwords with a new feature which allows Hotels to be highly promoted on search results via advertisements.
It will be interesting to note how the mechanics could work between hotels and general ads on adwords, and more importantly how Google will give preference to hotels ads in comparison with the Google Hotel Finder framework. This new innovation from Google could very easily make users advertising budgets go higher in order to compete with the hotels ranking display positions on results. This new position from Google may be a way of improving general search engine results with relevant data and potentially more profitable and if it successful it may very be similar to Expedia and Hotels experiences applied to general search results, this new interoperability may be the way forward for Google.
However at present, the Google feature from Promoted Hotels ads may possibly violate intellectual property and trademarks of a hotel if competitors are directly targeting a particular hotel and Google acting on their behalf by using and allowing promoted bookings from deep pockets hotels by directing users on advertising search results, but clearly Google states that this is not the case nor it applies for its advertising partners. This question is open to debate particularly when compared to Google Hotel Finder as potentially there are marketing agreements where rules apply for directed bookings. Nevertheless, the new Promoted Hotels format in Google Hotel Finder is quite experimental at the moment.
