Google Hotel Search FAQ

Your prices will not be shown on the Google search view if there is no Ad being run on Google. There must be at least one business (an OTA or your property) running an Ad of your hotel on Google.

The prices & the booking engine link will still appear in what Google calls "the immersive view", which can be accessed by visiting this site https://www.google.com/travel/hotels

As of March 16th, the activation will occur weekly. Keep an eye out for an in-app announcement on your Cloudbeds account to see if your account has been activated.

You can also check the following notification on your Distribution page:

1. Access the Channels tab in Distribution section
2. If your property has been included, you will see the following notification:

No - only properties with Cloudbeds Booking Engine will be eligible to be included in Google Hotel Search services.

If you use a different booking engine and want leverage Google, your booking engine provider needs to build their own integration - In such cases, please reach out to your booking engine provider directly.

For a better understanding, check the following details:

1. Free Booking Links - A free listing in Google Hotel Search that displays a link to your Cloudbeds booking engine with an official site badge that shows bookable rates on the prices page for your property. They lead to direct reservations and appear underneath any 'Google Hotel Ads' being run. They are listed under All options
2. Google My Business - is a free tool that allows you to promote your property on Google Search. You can see and connect with your customers, post updates to your business profile, and see how customers are interacting with your business on Google
3. Google Hotel Ads - Prominently displays your official website on Google Hotel Search with bookable rates. They lead to direct reservations and appear along with any other 'Google Hotel Ads' being run.
   Display in a property’s Google My Business profile, and appear in Google hotel finder results. When a user clicks on a Google Hotel Ad, they are redirected directly into the property's booking engine to complete the booking.
4. Google Ads - Google Ads are ‘keyword ads’ - A paid product that you can use to promote your business, help sell products or services, raise awareness, and increase traffic to your website. The results contain an Ad box.
   This program used to be called Google AdWords is where you bid on a keyword, create an advertisement with ad copy and people click on it to go to your website.

Google Hotel Ads is a metasearch tool that compares the property prices available on different OTAs and properties' direct websites.

The main goal of this feature is to increase direct bookings and online visibility in search engine results.

Cloudbeds PMS is integrated with Google Hotel Search, providing Availability, Rates, and Inventory to Google. This integration makes it possible to run Google Hotel Ads, which is offered through our Cloudbeds Digital Marketing Suite.

No - All eligible properties will be included in the Google Hotel Search service, and this allows properties to benefit from the organic listing Google search results. Since Ads Hotel allows you to connect with other platforms, too, you can keep both and do not need to switch to Google Hotel Search.

We are working on better solutions for properties promotion on Google Hotels Ads in the future.

In order to temporarily close your property on Google, you need to mark your property at your Google My Business profile as "temporarily closed".

Cloudbeds updates Google with blocked inventory, but also, you will not be able to promote your property at Google.

If you want to disable your Google Hotel Search connection, send an email to our support team and one of our Customer Coaches will confirm once complete.

Cloudbeds will send your rates, availability and inventory from the Booking Engine to Google. Check the following article for further details about restrictions: Google Hotel Search - Information about Restrictions

• If you have any add-ons configured at Cloudbeds, the guests can add them to the reservation during the booking process, but it will not be reflected in Google
• Cloudbeds does not send payment options to Google

The activation occurs weekly for a smooth and successful rollout. If Google Hotel Search service was not activated for your property, it means that your property was not determined by Cloudbeds for last week's cohort.

If your property is eligible for the connection, we will activate Google Hotel Search service soon.

It is not possible due to the requirements from Google in order to update prices and inventory correctly. Cloudbeds needs to use the Booking Engine URL as the landing page.

As a workaround, you can use an option to redirect your guests once the booking is confirmed. Click here to check how to configure.

If you do not want certain room types to be displayed on Google Hotel Search, you can use the Allotment or Closeout options in the Distribution page. 

The Allotment option will affect the inventory for all channels, while the Closeout setting will turn unavailable dates specifically for the Google Hotel Search channel. Please check further details below:

In the channels list, you may encounter the following message

This means that Google is not able to match your property.

Some solutions to fix this are:

• Adding or Claiming your Business on Google My Business
• Hotel categories shall be selected
• Property profile details should match the information in Cloudbeds

Fixing Data Issues:

• Phone number is too short
• Missing physical address
• Invalid Phone Number
• Missing Street Number
• Inconsistent latitude/longitude
• Invalid Postal Code

Although the guest found your property on Google and used the Free Booking Link, the reservation itself was made on the Cloudbeds Booking Engine. Therefore, the reservation source will always be showing as Website / Booking Engine.

If you need to see which reservations were created using the Free Booking Link on Google, you can export the list of reservations from the Reservations tab and use the field Origin. The reservations made through Google connection will have Google Hotel Search as the Origin.

Follow the steps:

1. Go to Reservations
2. You can filter the reservations by Date Booked
3. Click Apply
4. Click Export Reservations

5. Make sure the field Origin is selected (on the right side) - You may add or remove other fields if necessary.
6. Click Export Reservations

Google compares prices between direct bookings and channels (OTAs) and show the cheapest price on the following Google calendar.

When the guest is redirected to your Cloudbeds Booking Engine, they will see all available rooms, base rates and rate plans* for the selected date range.

The booking link will redirect not only to a specific rate plan or room type, but also to the guests section to indicate the number of adults and children (if applicable)

It is possible that your old PMS/Booking Engine are still active.

Solution: Contact your old provider to make sure the system is completely shut down. If the inventory is still active on the old PMS, reservations can still go into it.

Once the old PMS is decommissioned, Cloudbeds Booking Engine link will appear — as long as Google Hotel Search is enabled on Cloudbeds PMS. Check out the requirements: Google Hotel Search - All you need to know

Whenever Google Hotel Search mapping switches to Pending approval from Channel status — it could mean that the Amount Allotted for Sale was changed, and Google is trying to update the feed list. After Google Hotel Search is done with it, the status on the mapping should change to Enabled again.

Properties that belong to the same owner, have similar names and are in close vicinity to one another, cannot be connected to Google Hotel Search. This is a restriction coming from the Google Hotel Search. For the two properties to be connected to Google Hotel Search, they should be at least 1.5 miles apart from each other.