It looks like Google is starting to do some more experiments on Hotel Ads. Recently, we spotted an experiment on localuniversal that prominently highlights hotel amenity data beneath the metasearch ad unit. As of now, the experiment appears to be showing for a small amount of traffic.

If you want to read some additional thoughts, checkout Jarrod’s earlier post on how amenities can drive bookings.

Where amenities are showing

The experiment is shown in multiple areas of the localuniversal experience. In the 3-pack, 1 amenity per hotel is shown. If you drill in further to a hotel detail page or in the knowledge graph, the amenities are shown under the metasearch ads. In those scenarios, 6 amenities are shown and you can expand the widget to see more amenities that you have (and ones you don’t have greyed out).

Generic search for hotels in Dallas

On the hotel detail page from localuniversal

In the Knowledge Graph

In the Mobile Local Universal Search Results

Core Data Is Important

Having complete and accurate core hotel data is a key piece of an efficient metasearch campaign. Now is a great time to audit the amenities that you are distributing. Along with that, there may be opportunities to optimize the amenity data that you are sending to publishers. For example, most people  booking a hotel in the U.S. will assume a hotel is air conditioned. This might not be an amenity for the hotel that helps nudge the user further into the conversion funnel. However, this could be a very important amenity when booking in some other parts of the world where an air conditioned hotel is not a guarantee.