In May, the Book on Google function for booking hotels directly on the portal was closed. And now the giant is going to abandon the possibility of buying tickets in the Google Flights search.
“Over the next 12 months, we plan to phase out Book on Google for Google Flights. We originally introduced this feature to make buying tickets easier and to help our partner airlines and carriers get more bookings. However, over time, we have found that people actually want to book directly with partner websites, and we always strive to meet user preferences whenever possible,” the press office said.
At the moment, Google shows offers of hotels, but when trying to book the option they like, the client is redirected to the website of the booking partner. The situation with air tickets is similar – until the moment of purchase, the user is on the search engine website, but for registration, it is necessary to go either to the agency website or directly to the carrier.
“Abandoning this functionality, first in hotels, and now in airline tickets, Google is going against the trend,” the expert believes. – Similar services can be found in other metasearch engines that Google competes with. This is a convenient user scenario when you can book and pay without going to the partner’s website. And this ensures a higher conversion into a successful payment. As a result, the partner receives more bookings.”
According to the expert, the rejection of BoG is because the development and maintenance of services require large resources, but does not bring significant profit – there are about 1,000 airlines in the world, about 10 online agencies in each country, and each company has its software interfaces. That is why this functionality was not supported by all partners and not in all countries. “It is possible that the company may return to the booking challenge later when partner technology becomes more standardized.”