Best Hotel Metasearch Engines To Grow Your Hotel Bookings

What is a Hotel Metasearch Engine?

In the hospitality industry, Metasearch has a refined meaning.

It refers to a platform where hotels’ inventory, rates, and availability are pulled from their websites and/or Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and displayed in one place.

Of course, in the usual metasearch fashion, these results are a coalition of results from multiple search engines.

The relevance of this to potential customers is that they can conveniently check prices, view images, read descriptions and check out reviews without having to browse through numerous travel platforms or search engines.

In 2018, a survey carried out by Eye for Travel revealed that 94% of travelers use metasearch sites to compare hotel rates.

So even if the average person uses Google to search for things and doesn’t utilize Metasearch engines, travelers are always using metasearch to make booking their hotel rooms and planning their trips super easy.

Another advantage is receiving hotel guests’ contact information, which doesn’t happen when the bookings are made through an OTA.

How Hotel Metasearch Works

Metasearch engines are not limited to hotels, travel, or the hospitality industry. They have a wider scope and a broad definition of what a Metasearch engine does.

A metasearch engine searches the databases of multiple search engines simultaneously in one single search.

When you search a metasearch engine, you get an aggregation of results from the multiple search engines to which your metasearch engine sent queries too. In essence, you get more information.

A hotel Metasearch engine utilizes this core feature of Metasearch engines and provides the results to users of an aggregation of all hotels available and their rates, location, descriptions, and photos, and more.

The Difference Cost Models of Hotel Metasearch Engines

Before partnering your business with a metasearch engine, it’s important to know how they work.

Let’s explore how a hotel metasearch engine makes money and how they benefit from you.

CPC (cost per click), or PPC (pay per click)

The typical cost model for Metasearch engines is CPC (cost by click) aka PPC (pay per click). Metasearch engines get their revenue from advertising your hotel. Every time your ad is clicked and the user is redirected to your website, your hotel is charged an amount.

They don’t handle bookings but instead redirect users to partner websites to complete transactions. This model doesn’t guarantee return and creates expenses before revenue but gives maximal flexibility and control over spendings as it can be frequently updated

Cost-per-action (CPA)

A less popular cost model, this time you’re only charged when the customer is redirected to your website and a booking is made. A fee or a percentage of the booking value is charged as commission.

In a perfect world, this would be an ideal cost model since you’re only charged when you get money but, unfortunately, it comes with a major downside. If the provider understands they can make more money off of other providers working on CPC rather than the margin on commissions, your visibility will drop.

Hybrid or Targeted CPA

This model is a combination of the CPA and the CPC model. It is a CPC-based bidding model with a commission factor. Thanks to this approach, the hotel can be flexible and push for maximum visibility but also minimize the risk by only investing as long as the returns are good.

Now that you understand how a Metasearch engine works with your hotel, it’s time to answer the big question.

Does a metasearch engine benefit your business?

And what better way to answer that than to look into the value of a Hotel Metasearch engine right below.

What is the Difference Between Hotel Metasearch Engines and OTAs?

The acronym OTA has been used repeatedly in this article and is probably one that many hoteliers are familiar with. OTA refers to ‘Online Travel Agent’.

What is an Online Travel Agent?

An online travel agency (OTA) is a web-based marketplace that allows consumers to research and book travel products and services, including hotels, flights, and more, directly with travel suppliers.

They display and promote the current rates of many different hotels in the same destination.

This definition must sound awfully similar to the definition of a Metasearch Engine but, there is a difference. Here is a list of the significant differences between Metasearch engines and OTAs.

CPC Vs CPA

Most Metasearch engines charge you per click (cost-per-click or Pay-per-click) while OTAs always charge by commission (cost-per-action or cost-per-acquisition).

You stand to increase revenue when using Metasearch engines as opposed to OTAs. This is because you don’t need to pay a commission to the Metasearch sites.

You run the risk of losing revenue if your guests ended up booking through an OTA, or if they never discovered your property at all.

Direct Booking

There was once a time when this used to be the major difference between Metasearfch sites and OTAs. Users were able to book hotels directly from an OTA website, whereas that direct booking feature wasn’t available on Metasearch sites.

However, now, metasearch engines like TripAdvisor and Google Hotel Ads have instant booking features and allow users to book directly.

Coverage

OTAs will only display and promote hotels that are in partnership with them. They have a massive marketing budget for hotels in partnership with them and the results that the users get are limited to the number of hotels that are in partnership with the particular OTA like Expedia for example.

Metasearch engines, on the other hand, display all information about deals on other platforms, including OTAs and hotel websites, allowing users to easily compare prices.

This means Metasearch engines have wider coverage than OTAs and will give your business a larger online presence.

Data Retention

Worthy of mention is the fact that Metasearch engines like Google hotel ads for example retain contact details so you don’t receive them directly.

If this data is important to you, then it’d be a good idea to access the Metasearch sites with a PMS like Booking Ninjas. These PMS functions to help you retain data from your customers and also provide analysis on the collated data.

On a final note, the use of OTAs and Metasearch sites in the hospitality industry is not a competition but rather complementary tools that work together side by side for the favor of your business.

Benefits of Using a Hotel Metasearch Engine

Drive Direct Bookings

As mentioned earlier, Metasearch engines now provide instant booking and allow users to directly make bookings from the metasearch sites at no extra cost to you.

Of course, as a hotel, you need to have a booking engine available for your users to make their bookings. Having a booking engine is one of the requirements that a hotel must have before partnering with a metasearch site. We touch on more of this in the how to connect with a metasearch engine section of this article.

Reduce Distribution Costs

Although there are different payment models, all the prominent metasearch sites make use of the pay-per-click(PPC) system. This helps reduce distribution costs and drive revenue.

Under this pay-per-click business model, reservation costs will decrease, with a chance that customers may go directly to the hotel’s website to book – resulting in a commission-free booking, meaning no costs at all!

Run Promotions

With Metasearch sites, you can combine current promotions with real-time room availability and rates, as well as adjust the pricing when needed instantly.

With sites like Google Hotel Ads, you can run campaigns and attract travelers who are actively looking for a hotel to yours. The features are very flexible and customizable and the statistics show that they bring in results.

Amplify Online Presence

What’s one sure way for a hotel to build a strong online presence? Showcasing their customer reviews, cool photos of their rooms, and showing some ratings from verified sources.

Think about it, when was the last time you made a reservation without checking reviews first?

Metasearch websites like TripAdvisor create an additional advertising opportunity for your hotel by showcasing these reviews, ratings, and photos. This creates a sense of trust or security for your customers.

They see your hotel on bigshot metasearch sites like Google or TripAdvisor with all the great reviews and 5-star ratings and boom, they’re booking a room because they know you’re tested and trusted now.

Disadvantages of Using a Hotel Metasearch Engine

Extra step for User to complete a booking

It seems as though the more social media and internet use grow, the smaller the average user’s attention span becomes.

Going through the metasearch site route to get to your hotel might be one further step to booking for many customers. They might get distracted and lose focus before making the booking due to the relatively long process. This could lead to lower conversion rates for metasearch engines.

No direct ownership of customer

Essentially, what this means is that sometimes the customer doesn’t know who they’re answering to anymore. For instance, if something were to go wrong in the booking process, who do they contact?

They could be uncertain about where the booking occurred and wondering if they should contact the metasearch for support or the hotel itself.

Google: Best Hotel Metasearch Engine

Just as there are advantages of partnering with Metasearch engines, there are also disadvantages.

Yet, hoteliers continue to invest in this, and here’s why-

If you had to make inquiries or find a hotel room, the average person will most probably search the world’s number one search engine - Google.

When you make a hotel-related search on Google, you’re presented with a layout that follows this order

• Two or Three paid search ads (PPC)
• A hotel comparison grid which is called a ‘Hotel Local Pack’

This Hotel Local Pack has a button below that allows you to view more hotels.

You could choose to click on the ‘view more hotels’ button or simply choose from one of the four or five hotels displayed with their prices.

This interface which we are all familiar with if you’ve ever googled for hotels before - is a metasearch engine.

It’s one of the most popular metasearch engines which we use all the time but don't even know we’re using one.

This way your hotel has its rates and hotel website booking page right on a metasearch site and this space allows you to drive more direct bookings.

You might be thinking this is all well and good but, is it necessary to invest in metasearch engines when you can just rely on showing up on Google?

Let me put it this way, people hardly scroll past the Hotel Local Pack when searching for hotel rooms. If you choose to not participate in metasearch, you are doing yourself a disservice and cutting your online presence down.

But don’t just take my word for it, here are some statistics to back up why metasearch is essential for hotels

• According to Google, in the first six months of 2018, metasearch has helped its hotel ad partners (participant hotels) across the globe receive 65% more leads year over year.
• Booking cancellation ratio through Google Hotel Ads is around 13%. This is far below compared to around 20% to 40% cancellations that happen with Online Travel Agencies (OTA) booking.
• 65% of all hotel bookings generated through metasearch engines come from Google Hotel Ads
• 12% of hotel reservations are made through metasearch engines and they assist 25% to other channels (SEO, direct, Adwords “Ads”, Display, among others).

At the end of the day, metasearch is typically one of the most efficient online marketing channels out there, often yielding the highest ROI [return on investment] for marketing.

List of Top Metasearch Engines for Hotels

You’ve probably put two and two together and concluded that Google Hotel Ads is the most popular hotel metasearch engine. Well, there are others that are just as lucrative and some of them will definitely ring a bell.

Maybe you’ve even stumbled upon their services before when making a hotel reservation.

Google Hotel Ads

Like we stated above, Google Hotel Ads is undoubtedly the best hotel metasearch engine in the market today.

Google is already a known brand that almost everyone is familiar with and to access this metasearch engine, users don’t have to type in ‘Google Hotel Ads’ in their browser. All they have to do is make a regular google search and they get access to the metasearch site before the typical google result lists.

Because of this, it’s so easy for you as a hotelier to attract and engage customers. You can redirect customers to your site to make their bookings – or allow them to book on directly Google.

This metasearch also works with your PMS(connectivity partner) to provide seamless connectivity and updates on your room rates, special offers, and more.

TripAdvisor

Perhaps the most trusted platform for reviews on hotels, resorts, fun spots, and more. They’re called TripAdvisor and that’s what they’re the best at.

Travelers across the globe use the Tripadvisor site and app to discover where to stay, what to do, and where to eat based on guidance from those who have been there before. With more than 934 million reviews and opinions of nearly 8 million businesses, travelers turn to Tripadvisor to find deals on accommodations, book experiences, reserve tables at delicious restaurants and discover great places nearby.

Simply, TripAdvisor makes travel easier.

If you didn’t know TripAdvisor was a metasearch site, now you do.

Its results are aggregated from different sites and things on the internet. Just like Google, customers can make bookings directly on TripAdvisor.

HotelsCombined

HotelsCombined, a unit of Booking Holdings, is a hotel metasearch engine founded in 2005, with headquarters in Sydney, Australia.

The site aggregates more than 2 million deals from hundreds of travel sites and hotel chains

HotelsCombined has been a hotel price comparison expert since 2005. We have worked with HotelsCombined since 2014. They list the prices for a particular hotel as offered by all the booking websites, which ensures you'll get the lowest room rate.

Trivago

As a hotel price comparison website, Trivago makes money from advertising partners primarily using a cost-per-click (CPC) business model. Booking platforms, hoteliers, and other providers list rates and advertise on the Trivago site, paying for the clicks received from Trivago users

Trivago also offers free and fee-based versions of its Hotel Manager product, which hoteliers use to market their facilities on the Trivago site.

Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a Metasearch that lets people research and book travel options for their trips, including flights, hotels, and car hire and they have offices in Barcelona, Beijing, Budapest, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Miami, Shenzhen, Singapore, and Sofia.

Skyscanner is free for travelers to use. They do not charge the end user a commission. They make their money from the companies they list.

Compared to other travel metasearch engines, the website counts a greater share of millennials among its users

Wego

Fun fact - the name ‘Wego’ is a shortened form of the question ‘Why we go?’ The brains behind Wego explain that this idea originates from the belief that everyone has an innate desire and yearning to travel — to experience, to live, and to grow.

Wego displays travel rate results in real-time from over 700 travel sites, so users can shop and compare flight and hotel prices available online.

Wego displays a combination of local and international airfares and hotel search results from online travel agencies (OTA), airlines, and hotels on desktop or travel apps for iOS and Android. Once a user has selected their preference, they are redirected to the travel supplier to complete their booking.

Kayak

One of the very first to do it, KAYAK has been in the hotel metasearch game since 2004.

KAYAK searches hundreds of travel sites to show travelers the information they need to find the right flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages.

KAYAK, SWOODOO, checkfelix, momondo, Cheapflights, Mundi, and HotelsCombined are a group of brands under the parent company Booking Holdings. Together, they make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

Tips to Increase Bookings With Hotel Metasearch Engines

Alright, so Hotel Metasearch is a great marketing strategy that every hotel should be investing in.

But, everyone is doing it and if they weren’t using it before, they probably will be once they’re through with this article.

Here's the tough pill though - not everyone is going to be successful with it. It’s most likely not going to improve your revenue if you don’t get some basic things covered first.

Remember that everyone is doing it so to even put yourself on the playing field, it’s important to follow these tips.

Clean up your Profile

Metasearch sites are displaying your hotel profile right beside several others. So the look of your profile and the first impression it gives matters now more than ever.

Make sure you provide all the up-to-date information such as location, detailed descriptions, high-quality pictures, full contact information, etc.

Straight-forward Pricing

Nothing sends people running faster than inconsistent pricing. The pricing provided on your metasearch profile should be the same as the pricing on your website.

It’s also important to know that your ranking in most metasearch platforms depends on the accuracy of the provided information. So, updating your prices to fit what’s on your website is very important.

Reviews Matter

TripAdvisor is many people go to site when booking a hotel room and it's almost always to view reviews. Like TripAdvisor, many metasearch sites display reviews. So to excel in the metasearch game, you need to work on reviews.

Encourage your guests to write a few words about their experience and remember to respond to reviews to show your guests that you care about their opinions.

Setting up alerts for new reviews helps you to respond to them. This creates trust amongst potential guests and also helps your ranking on metasearch sites.

Get a reliable Booking Engine

A booking engine provides a seamless booking experience for your guests. After all, the end goal is to get your guests to make direct bookings.

You need a booking engine that integrates with your website and provides a smooth and easy booking and payment process for your guests.

Don’t forget SEO

Just like we put in the effort to optimize content so we can rank high on Google, the same practices apply with metasearch sites too.

Implementing common SEO practices like proper utilization of keywords and overall content of your website helps increase your presence on metasearch engines.

Finding the right PMS or CRS

Navigating the connection with a metasearch and monitoring your key performance indicators can be a tasking duty.

To ensure you don’t risk losing your resources, it’s essential to find a Property Management System (PMS) or Central Reservations System (CRS) that can connect your hotel to metasearch engines and manage your campaigns.

The value of working with the right PMS or CRS provider is that you can connect your hotel to all the major metasearch engines, including Google, TripAdvisor, Kayak, and Trivago.

Not all PMS or CRS provide this service so it’s important to make sure the software you’re investing in can add a metasearch connection to your package.

Extra Tip: To connect your hotel with Google Hotel Ads and Tripadvisor, use the Booking Ninjas PMS

How to Connect Your Hotel to Metasearch Engines?

The first thing to know is that you’re going to have to share your inventory, rates, and availability to be displayed to potential guests.

There are three ways you can share this information to metasearch engines as follows:

Via open APIs

If you’re not even sure what API means then consider skipping to the next option.

This method involves manually connecting your software to a metasearch engine via API.

It’s not something anyone can easily figure out unless you’re a technical expert as it is very technical.

Through an Online Travel Agency (OTA)

If your hotel has a partnership with OTAs and you don’t want to work with metasearch websites directly, you can ask your OTA partner to list your property on your behalf.

As expected, this comes with less control over your profile and there’s no direct relationship between you and the metasearch engine.

Through a connectivity partner

The easiest way to connect to metasearch engines is through a connectivity provider approved by the metasearch platform.

The aforementioned connectivity provider often refers to a PMS. For many metasearch sites, it’s a strict requirement for your hotel to have a booking engine and/or a channel manager.

A PMS like Booking Ninjas provides those features and will also help connect your hotel to the top metasearch engines.

I want to use the Metasearch Engine, what do I do?

If you’ve made it to this part of the article then there’s only one thing left to do.

Get the right PMS in your corner!

This one single action will cover all of the points mentioned above. The right PMS will:

• Provide you with a reliable booking engine
• Handle the integration between you and the metasearch sites
• Hold your hand through the whole process and make sure the tips are implemented
• Monitor the impact of metasearch on your hotel and determine if it’s the right move for your business.
• Ensure you don’t walk the confusing path of metasearch engines alone.

The Booking Ninjas PMS team comprises technical experts that work together with you to create the best experience with Metasearch sites and give your hotel the online presence it deserves.

If you’re ready, get on a call with us or schedule an appointment today.

References

Trauttmansdorff, Michael. “Google Hotel Ads joins Google Ads.” blog.google, 11 July 2018, https://www.blog.google/products/ads/hotel-campaigns/

Accessed 06 August 2021.

1. Hotelogix. “Why Increase Your Hotel's Visibility on Google Hotel Ads.” Hotel Speak, Hotel Speak, 04 February 2019, https://www.hotelspeak.com/2019/02/why-increase-your-hotels-visibility-on-google-hotel-ads/

Accessed 06 August 2021.

1. Rokou, Tatiana. “65% of all hotel bookings generated through metasearch engines come from Google Hotel Ads.” Travel Daily News, 12 October 2018, https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/65-of-all-hotel-bookings-generated-through-metasearch-engines-come-from-google-hotel-ads

Accessed 06 August 2021.

1. EyeForTravel. “94% of travel consumers compare hotel prices on metasearch.” Eye For Travel, 26 November 2018, http://eyefortravelblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/94-of-travel-consumers-compare-hotel.html

Accessed 06 August 2021.