Articles tagged “trivago”

Many hotel groups are directing more of their ad budgets toward price-comparison search sites. That's a boon for vendors providing connectivity and automation services. But it's also a welcome, if still modest, injection for metasearch players like Trivago that have recently been struggling.

Trivago is trying to make peace with its largest advertisers, especially the biggest, Booking Holdings. These peace overtures seem to be working for now, but metasearch and advertising can be very fickle things.

Google is eating the world. When metasearch sites such as Trivago see a strategic benefit in increasing their advertising in Google metasearch, it's not only enough to make your head spin, but it's ominous from a competitive standpoint, as well.

The fact that Booking Holdings and Expedia Group are leaning away from TripAdvisor is a wake-up call for many metasearch sites. However, travelers still love to use the damn things for comparison shopping, so there's that.

Expedia Group wants to become less U.S.-centric, but change is coming slowly. Trivago's troubles are partly to blame.

Uh-oh. Trivago changed its user interface again. Last time it did this, it referred fewer customers to some advertisers and prompted Booking Holdings to pull back from advertising on it. Trivago is betting that Booking won't retaliate for this new effort. Daring!

Understandably, Expedia and Booking are both trying to spin this in their favor as much as possible but it seems like a big win for the UK's competition regulator. We'll have to keep an eye on how much it really changes things and whether other countries follow up.

Trivago has reportedly admitted to misleading consumers about its hotel comparisons and will have to appear in court later this month to defend its actions. This comes as Australians are being whipped up to boycott foreign-owned hotel aggregators that are accused of ripping off local hotel owners and operators.

Shares in the hotel search company rose the most in two years on news that a cut in ad spending had pushed the Expedia-controlled company into the black. But the company, which once enjoyed meteoric growth, seems unlikely to return to turbo-charged revenue gains anytime soon.

TripAdvisor still isn't crazy about Google emphasizing its own travel businesses ahead of those of competitors. Still, in the wacky world of online travel marketing, metas will advertise in other metas when the financials work in their favor. User experience? It isn't always the best.