Articles tagged “alphabet”

Skift has been arguing for more than a decade that Google creates an anti-competitive playing field by self-preferencing its own travel businesses over those of competitors. The European Commission's wheels are turning very slowly.

Booking Holdings and Expedia spend billions of dollars each year to have their websites prioritized within Google search results pages, so any overcharging would hit them hard.

As a baseball luminary once said, "It ain't over til it's over." Third-party cookies were about to be gone but then they weren't.

As with privacy concerns, the European Union is ahead of the U.S. when it comes to regulating digital platforms such as Google. European online travel companies aren't satisfied with Google's changes — but hotels think they go too far.

No one truly knows how generative AI will shake up the travel industry. Will Google stick with advertising instead of booking? Meanwhile, Booking feels it has advantages as a booking site.

Google is flipping the script on its anti-competitive behavior in South Africa, with a partnership to bolster digital transformation in the country's tourism sector.

Google's advertising business sucked the life out of Tripadvisor and others' free search results. The issue of Google's alleged search bias and how it impacts the travel industry is not going away.

Choosing how much to advertise with Google, and where and when, can have significant financial implications. Trivago didn't jump into a new Google ad format, and got burned.

Today's edition of Skift's daily podcast looks closer at Wyndham’s earnings, Google’s travel priorities, and Royal Caribbean’s encouraging quarter.

Google's key priorities are artificial intelligence, retail, and YouTube. Travel is still an important vertical — it's just not a top focus.