Do you want to gain free booking links from Google?
Do you want to boost your direct hotel bookings?
Are you using metasearch campaigns to attract your target audience towards your hotel brand?
Well, if you are still not aware of the news, Google recently announced that it would allow all the hoteliers and the OTAs to boost their visibility on Google Travel using free booking links.
You can complement your existing metasearch campaigns and increase the number of direct bookings using free booking links.
Even all your listings on different OTAs can have a direct link to help you achieve your business goals and drive a huge amount of traffic towards your hotel.
But how will a free hotel booking link work?
How can you get a free booking link for your hotel?
Do you want to continue your listings on different OTAs or not?
There might be a lot of queries and doubts emerging in your mind. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
In this blog, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about the nitty-gritty of the free booking links from Google and how they can help increase your hotel business and optimize existing search marketing campaigns.
So without further ado, let’s get started.
What Is A Free Hotel Booking Link?
Recently, Google came up with an idea to strengthen the reach and effectiveness of all the hoteliers and OTAs using Google to grab the attention of their target audience. It adds a new source of free bookings for hospitality industry owners to boost their existing business.
A free hotel booking link is also focused on improving the travel experience of its users.
But there’s confusion with the word ‘free.’
Many hotel owners are confused about what exactly has changed and what Google is offering for free.
With the introduction of free booking links, Google supplements the existing paid metasearch auction with a listicle of pricing, including the OTAs and hotels.
It won’t charge for the clicks that the advertiser will get from their target audience. Besides active advertisers, hotels and OTAs linked with Google’s Hotel Center can also be included in the list.
For example: If a guest searches for your hotel, it will display all the communication channels and the OTAs you have listings on.
The listicle will be divided into two sections:
- One section will have the details of all the paid advertisers.
- The other section is the ‘All Options’ section, or the organic listicle.
The organic section contains all the OTAs with a Google listing, whether active or inactive metasearch advertisers. The rankings of the OTAs and all your communication channels will be primarily based on the prices. The lower the price, the higher the ranking.
But ultimately, your hotel brand will get all the traffic irrespective of which channel your guests choose to opt for. It will increase the chances of direct sales for your hotel business, and you’ll be able to fulfill your business targets more effectively with the help of the addition of free booking links.
The free booking links improve the existing Google user experience for any traveler and increase a potential guest’s chances to click and choose the desired option.
Now that we know what the free booking link is all about, let’s see how you can participate.
How Can A Hotelier Participate For The Free Booking Link?
The organic listing allows any hotelier who has a live price feed to be eligible for the listings.
Any hotel or OTA can appear in the free booking link with live rates, availability, and inventory feed integrated with the Google Hotel center.
If you are active with Google Hotel Ads, you can list your communication channel along with your prices in the organic listings. With the help of an open metasearch campaign, you can set the bid token at $0.01 to kick-start things.
If you are already using the traditional metasearch, it’s just an add-on for you to have the free booking link.
But if you don’t want that, ensure that all your OTAs listings are visible in the organic listing module.
Once you have all the OTAs ranked based on the pricing and landing page experience, you’ll be the one gaining all the business in the end.
So you don’t need to remove any of the OTA listings. Instead, you can add more listings to solidify the chances of converting your potential customers into your guests.
But with the increase in the OTA listings, it will be difficult for you to manage all the bookings, cancellations, prices, and room availability across all the OTAs simultaneously.
That’s where a channel manager comes to your rescue.
Channel Manager Got You Covered
With all the OTAs showcasing their respective prices for your hotel bookings, the chances of your guests choosing one of the OTAs is high.
Once they book their reservation, you need to update across all your listings. It will take time and energy to complete the update process.
On top of that, imagine if the guest hits the cancellation button only once you have updated all the OTA listings manually. It will be hectic, tedious, and cumbersome to repeat the update process, won’t it?
So why not automate all the update processes across all the OTA listings simultaneously.
With the help of dedicated channel manager software, you can manage all the processes of updating your rates, availability in real-time with no delays.
It helps to give an exceptional experience to your potential guests and showcase a professional image of your brand.
But which channel management system is ideal for your hotel brand?
With multiple options available on the market, it will be difficult to make the right decision.
AxisRooms Channel Manager Is The Tool Your Hotel Deserves
AxisRoom’s channel manager is one of the leading and top-notch channel managers that can assist you in solving all your OTAs and communication channel management and processing.
Irrespective of your size and requirements, we can provide you with a customized hotel channel management system with robust features and agile response. You’ll get detailed real-time reporting for all the rates and room availability updates across all the listed communication channels.
It will assist you in avoiding all the inconveniences your potential guests might face, like overbookings or double-bookings, which can tarnish your brand image and weaken the relationship with your customers.
Our experts will explain all the minute details regarding how the channel manager works and optimize our hotel channel manager.
Our team will help with all the initial setup of the channel manager with your existing revenue management system, property management system, or any other third-party tools.
Once the integration is done, our team will provide you with complete technical support to resolve all your hiccups and roadblocks and provide tailored and effective solutions for your smooth business operations.
Choose the best to achieve new heights in your business journey.
