People in European Economic Area (EEA) countries who are searching for things like "hotels near me" may notice that the experience has changed. These experiences aim to:
- Continue presenting users with relevant information for their searches
- Improve the visibility of ecosystem participants (aggregators, suppliers, and businesses) on the search results page
This developer site explains how hotel aggregators that are based in EEA, or serve users in EEA, can integrate to participate in the experience.
Hotel Aggregator and Supplier Units in Google Search
The upcoming changes include several new features and surfaces:
Hotel Aggregator Unit
The Hotel Aggregator unit is a multi-provider feature designed for Vertical Search Services (VSSs), including Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), metasearch engines, and directories. In this unit, eligible aggregators populate their unit with results relevant to the user's query. The top-ranked provider's results are expanded by default. For example, if a user searched for "hotels in paris," they may see a list of top-ranked hotels with photos, prices, or star ratings from an eligible provider. User clicks within the unit lead directly to that aggregator's website.
Users have the ability to select a different provider from a list of alternative aggregators, if available, expanding a unit populated with results from the new aggregator. Users may only expand one aggregator's unit at a time.
Supplier Unit
The Supplier Unit is a dedicated feature for direct providers (individual hotels or hotel brands), that appears alongside the Hotel Aggregator Unit. The Supplier Unit will only show up if the Hotel Aggregator Unit appears. It may appear above or below the Hotel Aggregator Unit, based on the relevance and quality of the results for the user's query.
To be visible in the unit, direct suppliers don't need to provide additional data beyond what's accessible through web crawling. However, supplier results may be enhanced with data feeds, if available. Learn more about supplier feeds.
Integration Requirements for Hotel Aggregator Unit
The Hotel Aggregator Unit requires 2 components:
- Property and Brand Static Content: Property names, locations, and brand identifiers supplied by the point of interest feed.
- Real Time Pricing: A real time pricing feed providing accurate rate information.
To participate, aggregators can use their current price feeds to deliver real-time and accurate pricing. The same price accuracy standards and policies apply. The Hotel Aggregator Unit will continue to rely on the existing pricing delivery modes to deliver real-time prices to users.
Point of Interest (POI) Feed
We are introducing a standardized feed format for entities with physical locations to replace or augment existing formats (like Hotel List feeds). This feed is designed to power the new Hotel Aggregator Unit in the EEA by ingesting core entity information for businesses with physical presence (like business name, address, and phone number) alongside relevant metadata, such as high-resolution photos, star ratings, and amenities. Data provided using this feed is used exclusively to populate the partner's own unit. It will never be used to enrich Google's own services or competitors' units.
Listings to POI Converter
To minimize technical friction for the initial launch, we are offering a transitional converter option for Lodging partners. This tool allows partners to participate using their existing Hotel List feeds. We will automatically convert this data into the compliant POI format. This serves as a bridge to the new standard, ensuring partners can participate in the new units while preparing for the required full-scale technical migration by the end of 2026. Partners can opt out of the converter at any time by contacting our support teams.