Google's travel ad chief said companies that aren't seeing enough advertising benefits with Google probably shouldn't spend as much as they are. Few big travel companies would drop out of Google knowing it might sabotage their businesses, but probably an increasing number are desperate for alternatives.
Google has a huge travel advertising business. If Google's advertising partners had to hand out tons of refunds to consumers for coronavirus-tinged trips that never happened, shouldn't Google, with its deep pockets, share in the pain?
If search for travel looking for door-to door trip options was a massive potential market, then Expedia, Booking Holdings, Ctrip, or Google would have already snapped up these companies, which have been laboring around that premise for years. This stuff is hard to execute, as the relatively modest exit seems to show.