As metasearch continues to grow and users continue to seek out better booking experiences, we see publishers making updates to meet these demands. Recently, we spotted Kayak and Trivago testing new user experiences with their hotel search results pages.

Kayak: New Hotel Search Results View

Kayak is testing its desktop results page which appears after users search for specific hotels. Users no longer need to click into a map view; instead, this results page now automatically provides a map view with the search hotel highlighted as well as other nearby hotels. Under the hotel ad, users can see ratings, amenities, and pictures of their searched hotel. The user is given more information about the hotel as well as destinations nearby and reviews from other users. If the user scrolls down, the nearby hotels on the map are listed in the ads list, but these ads will not show the additional information that is provided for the top spot hotel. However, different hotels can be clicked on from the map and these new hotels will populate in the top spot with the additional information.

Trivago: Testing Map Results

Similarly, Trivago is testing a new desktop experience on select user countries. When users search for a destination or a specific hotel, they are now provided with a map view alongside the hotel ads list. The map view shows a variety of hotels in the area based on the destination city that the user searched for. Additionally, when searching for a specific hotel, that hotel will be highlighted as the top result with nearby hotels shown on the map and below in the ads list. This experience seems to be currently available in a few countries.

What this Means for Metasearch Advertisers

The impact of these updates to Kayak and Trivago’s desktop experience will depend upon the users’ booking behavior. Additional information on Kayak’s new ad display, like amenities and reviews, may help to mitigate clicks that do not result in a booking, as the user has more insight into the hotel before clicking through on the ad. As publishers continue to update their user experiences to provide more tailored information for hotels, users may have less of a need to shop around for hotels. This could cause cost to decrease, as empty clicks decline and conversion rates increase.

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