Google Is the Real OTA Now - And Nobody's Talking About It

Booking.com takes 15-18% and hotels rage about it at every industry event. Meanwhile, Google has quietly positioned itself as the gatekeeper to nearly every hotel booking on the planet - and nobody's holding protest signs. Google Hotel Ads, AI Overviews, Free Booking Links, and Maps now control the top of the funnel for 65% of hotel searches. Google isn't an OTA. It's something far more powerful: the tollbooth that every OTA and every hotel must pay to reach travelers.

The hotel industry has spent a decade framing the distribution battle as "Hotels vs. OTAs." That framing is obsolete. The real battle is now "Everyone vs. Google" - and Google is winning so thoroughly that most hoteliers haven't even noticed the ground shifting beneath them.

Google Owns the Top of the Funnel

Let's trace a traveler's booking journey in 2026:

Step 1: Guest searches "hotels in Rome July" on Google. The first thing they see? A Google Hotel Pack - a map with prices, ratings, and availability pulled directly into the search results. No click to Booking.com. No click to your website. Google shows the options before anyone else gets a chance.

Step 2: If the guest clicks a hotel, they land on a Google Hotel Detail Page - with photos, reviews, price comparisons across OTAs, and a prominent "Book" button for Google Hotel Ads participants.

Step 3: If the guest uses Google's AI Overview (formerly SGE), they get an AI-generated summary of "best hotels in Rome for families" - and the hotels featured in that summary didn't choose to be there. Google's algorithm did.

At no point in this journey did the traveler visit Booking.com, Expedia, or your website. Google captured the entire consideration phase.

The data backs this up:

65% of hotel-related searches in 2025 resulted in a click on a Google-owned surface (Hotel Pack, Maps, Hotel Ads) before any other destination, according to a Sojern Digital Marketing report.
Google Hotel Ads revenue grew 38% year-over-year in 2025, reaching an estimated $8.2B globally (Phocuswright).
Google Maps is now the #1 travel discovery platform for domestic travel, used by 72% of US travelers to find accommodation (Google/Ipsos, 2025).

The AI Overview Problem

Google's AI Overviews represent a seismic shift that the hotel industry is dangerously unprepared for.

When a traveler asks Google "best boutique hotel in Barcelona for couples," the AI Overview generates a curated list of 3-5 properties with brief descriptions. This answer appears above all organic results, above all ads, above the Hotel Pack.

Here's what's terrifying about this:

You can't pay to be in the AI Overview. It's algorithmically generated based on reviews, content, and Google's training data. There's no "AI Overview Ads" product (yet).
You can't optimize for it. Unlike traditional SEO, there's no transparent ranking signal. Hotels that appear in AI Overviews tend to have strong review profiles and rich structured data, but the selection is opaque.
It compresses the consideration set. Instead of browsing 30 options on Booking.com, the traveler sees 4-5 options chosen by Google's AI. If you're not in that set, you don't exist.
Click-through rates to external sites are dropping. Google's own data shows that AI Overviews resolve queries without a click 40% more often than traditional search results. Travelers get their answer and book - often through Google's own booking integration.

A 2025 analysis by Semrush found that hotel-related queries with AI Overviews saw organic click-through rates decline by 28% compared to the same queries without AI Overviews. OTA clicks dropped by 22%. The only winner? Google's own products.

Google Hotel Ads: The Commission You Don't Talk About

Google Hotel Ads (GHA) is the industry's darling "alternative" to OTA commissions. Hotels love it because the commission model (pay-per-stay or CPC) feels more controlled than OTA commissions.

But let's look at the economics honestly:

Commission-per-stay on GHA: 10-14% for most independent hotels. Sounds great compared to Booking.com's 15-18%.
But conversion rates are lower. GHA sends traffic to your booking engine, which converts at 2-3% on average. Booking.com converts at 4-6%. So you need roughly twice the clicks to generate the same revenue.
CPC bidding is increasingly expensive. Average cost-per-click for hotel terms on Google has increased 52% since 2023 (WordStream, 2025). In competitive markets like London, Paris, and New York, CPCs for hotel terms regularly exceed €3-4.
Google Free Booking Links traffic is declining. When Google launched Free Booking Links in 2021, it was genuinely free traffic. By 2025, free links are buried below paid Hotel Ads, and their click share has dropped from 35% to an estimated 18% of total Hotel Ads clicks.

Google isn't giving you a cheaper distribution channel. It's creating a new tollbooth that sits between travelers and OTAs. Now you pay Google and potentially an OTA. The total cost of distribution is rising, not falling.

The Data Moat

Google's true competitive advantage isn't search market share - it's data:

Gmail: Google reads booking confirmation emails (anonymized) and knows who's traveling where, when, and at what price.
Maps: Google knows which hotels guests actually visit, how long they stay, and what they do in the area.
Reviews: Google Reviews has surpassed TripAdvisor in volume for hotels globally. A 2025 BrightLocal study found that 86% of consumers read Google Reviews before booking accommodation.
Flights: Google Flights tracks airfare and knows when a traveler has purchased a ticket to a destination - before they've even started searching for hotels.
Android/Chrome: Google can track the entire digital journey from flight search to hotel research to booking completion.

No OTA has this depth of data. Booking.com knows what happens on Booking.com. Google knows what happens everywhere.

"The difference between Booking.com and Google is that Booking.com needs you to come to their platform. Google IS the platform. There's no 'before Google' in the traveler journey anymore." - Travel Tech Analyst, Phocuswright Europe 2025

What Hotels Should Be Doing

Take Google Hotel Ads seriously - but with open eyes

GHA should be in your distribution mix. But don't treat it as the anti-OTA silver bullet. Monitor your effective cost of acquisition including click waste, and compare it honestly against OTA commissions on a net-revenue basis.

Invest in Google Business Profile like it's your homepage

For many travelers, your Google Business Profile IS your website. It's the first (and often only) touchpoint:

Update photos monthly. Google's algorithm rewards recency.
Respond to every Google Review - positive and negative - within 24 hours.
Use Google Posts to highlight offers, events, and property updates.
Ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) is consistent across all platforms. Inconsistencies tank your Maps ranking.
Add detailed attributes: Free WiFi, parking, pool, pet-friendly. These are the filters travelers use in Maps.

Prepare for AI Overviews

While you can't directly control AI Overview inclusion, you can influence the signals:

Build a strong, diverse review profile across Google, TripAdvisor, and niche platforms. AI Overviews pull from multiple sources.
Implement structured data (schema.org) on your website: Hotel, Review, FAQ, and LocalBusiness schemas.
Create content that answers specific traveler questions. "Best hotel in Barcelona for families" is a query. If your website has a page that directly answers it with genuine value, you increase your chances.

Diversify beyond Google

The Google dependency problem is real and growing. Smart operators are investing in channels Google doesn't control:

Direct email marketing to past guests (Google can't tax this)
Partnership programs with local businesses, tourism boards, and tour operators
Social media booking through Instagram and TikTok (still small, but growing)
Travel advisor relationships (human travel agents are having a renaissance, especially for luxury travel)

The Endgame Nobody Wants to Discuss

Google's trajectory is clear: capture more of the booking transaction. Google already offers "Book on Google" in several markets, handling the entire booking flow on Google's domain. The hotel gets a booking. Google gets the data, the customer relationship, and - eventually - a commission.

When that happens at scale, Google won't be "like" an OTA. It will be THE OTA - the one that controls the search, the discovery, the comparison, the booking, and the post-stay review. And unlike Booking.com, you can't delist from Google. There is no alternative search engine for 92% of the world's internet users.

The industry spent 15 years fighting Booking.com and Expedia while Google quietly built the infrastructure to make both of them - and your direct channel - dependent on Google for survival.

It's time to start talking about it.