Sabre Hospitality Solutions is testing a tool that would let hotels get direct bookings from Google organic searches on a commission model instead of pay-per-click.
The financial model is significant for hotels.
For several years, central reservation systems (CRSs) such as Trust International, have offered hotels a way to grab direct bookings from travelers searching for hotels and clicking links in Google Maps and Search. Yet there hasn't been wide hotel interest.
In Sabre's experiment, Google Hotel Ads will use a commission model instead when making participating hotels’ best available retail rates searchable and bookable on Google brands.
Unlike the older cost-per-click model, customers of Sabre's SynXis, its CRS, will only pay a commission on confirmed bookings made via organic search.
Here's an example that's live today: Travelers searching in Google Maps for hotel rooms in New York City on particular trip dates can see the rates for Morgans New York, a boutique hotel, displayed next to organic search results when searching for hotels and enter their trip dates.
Users may click on that "Book" button to directly book with Morgans (instead of via a third-party such as Booking.com) in the drop-down window. Clicking takes them to Morgans' own website booking engine, powered by SynXis.
The same thing is true when a user searches via Google.com/hotels, the search giant's metasearch product.
Sabre SynXis is used by more than 20,000 hotels globally, making it one of the largest of the CRSs in a fragmented market and a potential boon to Google in growing its search tool.
SynXis links hotel reservation system with its global distribution system for distribution, as well as housekeeping to accounts and other integrations.
This beta test is one of two dozen products debuted by Sabre, including its InstaSite digital marketing platform for hotels, since the company's IPO in April 2014.
EARLIER: Sabre launches InstaSite, hotel web services to challenge Booking.com, TravelClick and Wix