Google’s Latest Search Changes Could Reshape the Direct Booking Battle

The battle for direct hotel bookings has a new front.

Google just rolled out significant changes to its search results in Europe as it works to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The new experience gives greater prominence to vertical search services and comparison platforms like Expedia and Booking.com in categories including hotels, airlines, and restaurants.

For hotels, the implications go well beyond what a Google search results page looks like.

Google says earlier changes made in response to the DMA have already reduced free direct booking clicks to some European hotels by as much as 30%. Its latest changes could make intermediaries an even more prominent part of the travel planning process.

The changes currently apply to Europe, but they raise a broader question that matters to hotel operators everywhere:

How much control does your hotel really have over the guest acquisition journey?

What Is Changing in Google Search?

The Digital Markets Act is designed in part to prevent large technology companies from unfairly favoring their own products and services.

Google has already made more than 20 changes to Search in Europe in response to the legislation. For travel searches, that has included introducing dedicated features that give comparison sites greater visibility and removing or changing some of Google’s existing search functionality.

The newest iteration goes further. For relevant searches, vertical search services such as online travel and comparison platforms can receive more prominent placement, while direct hotel listings appear in a more limited format. 

Google argued that these changes will make the search experience less useful and increase costs for European businesses. European regulators, meanwhile, are focused on creating more competition and reducing Google’s ability to favor its own services.

There’s an important distinction here: this isn’t Google independently deciding that OTAs should become more prominent.

The changes are part of its response to European regulation. But regardless of why the search experience is changing, hotels still have to deal with the consequences.

Direct Booking Traffic Was Already Under Pressure

Hotels have spent years trying to shift more business toward direct channels, and the reasons are familiar. Direct bookings can reduce acquisition costs, give hotels greater ownership of the guest relationship, and create more opportunities to collect first-party data that can support future marketing and retention.

Google has played an important role in that strategy. A traveler searching for a particular hotel could encounter the property’s website, Google Business Profile, rates, reviews, images, maps, and other information that helped move them toward a direct booking.

The hotel guest journey that used to start with Google had already been shifting, and changes that add more intermediaries to that journey can make direct acquisition more difficult.

Google said in 2024 that hotels had reported declines of as much as 30% in free direct booking clicks after its initial DMA changes. In a separate European test that temporarily removed certain hotel search features, Google reported that hotels lost more than 10% of their traffic while traffic to intermediary sites remained largely flat. Google ultimately ended that test.

Those figures come from Google itself, so view them in the context of the company’s position in the regulatory debate. Still, the underlying issue is one hotel operators know well: even relatively small changes to the digital distribution landscape can affect where guests book and what it costs to acquire them.

The OTA Relationship Isn’t Going Away

This shouldn’t become another argument that hotels need to eliminate OTA business.

Online travel agencies serve an important role in hotel distribution. They provide enormous reach, help introduce properties to travelers who may never have discovered them otherwise, and can generate valuable demand.

The challenge is maintaining the right mix. A hotel that becomes overly dependent on third-party distribution can see acquisition costs rise while losing control of the guest relationship. At the same time, aggressively trying to move every booking away from OTAs can mean sacrificing valuable visibility and demand.

The goal should be to understand each channel’s role and make informed decisions about the business it generates. Google’s changes simply add another variable to that equation.

Your Direct Booking Strategy Needs More Than SEO

If organic visibility becomes less predictable, hotels need to think beyond ranking well for a collection of search terms.

A strong direct booking strategy begins with the hotel’s own digital experience.

Is the website easy to use on mobile? Is the booking process straightforward? Are rates and offers competitive? Does the website give travelers compelling reasons to book directly? Can someone quickly understand the differences between room types? Is important information about parking, amenities, dining, policies, and the surrounding destination easy to find?

Driving traffic to a hotel website only solves the first part of the problem. The website still needs to convert it.

Hotels should also pay close attention to their Google Business Profile, local search presence, paid search strategy, metasearch participation, and the accuracy of information appearing across third-party platforms.

The more fragmented hotel discovery becomes, the more important consistency becomes.

First-Party Data Becomes Even More Valuable

Another reason direct bookings matter has little to do with commission. They create a direct relationship with the guest.

An email address and appropriate marketing permission can open the door to pre-arrival communication, post-stay engagement, loyalty initiatives, personalized offers, and future direct bookings. Requesting guest feedback also helps drive brand loyalty.

That makes CRM and email strategy an increasingly important part of distribution. Hotels often spend heavily to acquire a guest and then treat the checkout date as the end of the relationship. That’s a missed opportunity.

If it becomes more expensive or difficult to acquire travelers directly through search, increasing the lifetime value of guests you’ve already acquired becomes even more important. 

It makes sense that many hotels are investing in diverse digital strategies to enhance guest engagement. The best future direct booking may come from someone who has already stayed with you.

Hotels Need to Understand Their True Cost of Acquisition

Channel decisions become much easier when operators understand what they’re actually paying for a booking. An OTA commission is visible. 

The cost of a direct booking can be more complicated. It may include paid search, metasearch fees, agency costs, technology, creative development, loyalty incentives, and other marketing expenses.

That doesn’t mean direct bookings aren’t valuable. It means “direct” shouldn’t automatically be interpreted as “free.”

Hotels should evaluate channels based on total acquisition cost, revenue quality, cancellation behavior, length of stay, guest value, and the opportunity to create future business.

That analysis can also help revenue, marketing, sales, and operations teams make distribution decisions together rather than evaluating each channel in isolation.

Watch the Data Before Changing Strategy

The latest Google changes are new, and their full effect isn’t yet clear. Hotels shouldn’t overhaul their distribution strategies because of one announcement. Instead, European properties should establish benchmarks and watch what happens.

Monitor organic traffic to the hotel website. Track direct booking volume and conversion rates. Look for changes in branded search behavior. Evaluate OTA contribution and acquisition costs. Investigate how social search plays a role in customer acquisition. Watch for shifts in metasearch performance, too.

The important question: Where are bookings moving, and what does that shift do to profitability?

Hotels outside Europe should pay attention, too. These changes are tied to European regulation and don’t automatically mean Google will introduce the same experience elsewhere. But they show how quickly a major acquisition channel can change because of decisions a hotel can’t control.

Distribution Is Becoming a Broader Strategic Conversation

Hotel distribution has never been static. AI reshaped hotel SEO. OTAs changed how travelers shop. Mobile transformed how they research and book. Metasearch created another layer of competition. Social media and creators influence destination decisions before travelers ever search for a hotel. AI is introducing still more ways for people to research trips.

Now regulation is changing the structure of search itself. Hotels can’t control Google’s interface, European regulation, OTA algorithms, or whatever comes next.

However, they can control how well they understand their channel mix, how effectively their website converts, how they use first-party guest data, and how quickly they recognize changes in booking behavior.

Google’s latest European search changes may ultimately prove significant, or their impact may be more limited than some early predictions suggest.

Either way, they offer a useful reminder for hotel leaders everywhere: the strongest distribution strategy doesn’t depend too heavily on any single gatekeeper.

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