Your booking engine + Google free booking links = more direct guests

Take your brand to Metasearch with Guestline

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Supercharge your direct guest acquisition

with Guestline DBM and Google free booking links

Accelerate your direct distribution

Continuing the ongoing effort to support independent hotels to drive more direct bookings, Guestline has partnered with Google to connect its PMS/ Booking Engine directly to the search engine to guarantee a real-time feed of hotel’s rates and availability.  

By using this fully automated direct connectivity, hoteliers will benefit from the increasing popularity of metasearch solutions, and boost their direct distribution. Strengthening the direct relationship with guest from the moment they search is priceless, and saves the hotel money with lower OTA commissions. 

What are Google free booking links?

Google free booking links is a service that retrieves your live rates and availability directly from Guestline PMS. When a guest uses Google search or Google Maps it will show a link to your official hotel website booking engine (Guestline DBM). This allows a potential guest to quickly compare prices against the OTAs and then go straight to a booking page. Google will display your hotel name with the room rate for the dates selected, it will also display a badge next to the hotel name showing that it is the “official website”.  

More information

When a guest searches for an area or your specific hotel on Google they will see your hotel listed and can view more details in the hotel listing area.

Clear call-to-action

They will also see a clear link to book and will be able view details on your hotel, such as hotel description, photos, reviews, amenities, and “things to know”.

Easy to book

This enhanced visibility will ultimately provide the potential booker with more information on the hotel and deliver an increased appetite to book. 

 

Clear listing

When a guest search for an area or your specific hotel on Google they will see your hotel listed and can view more details in the hotel listing area.

Easy to book

They will also see a clear link to book on your website (through your DBM), allowing you to increase your direct bookings. 

Accurate data

Your official site will be listed with other OTA’s but because of our connection with Google they are always receiving up-to-date, accurate rates direct from Guestline PMS. The feed can be also used for Google Hotel Ads to allow you bid to show in the “Ads”.

Next step - How to connect?

This feature is available! Register your interest below to receive more information.

Got questions?

We’ve listed all our frequently asked questions here to give you a head start, but if you can’t find the answer to your query, don’t hesitate to contact us.

  • Can I track bookings?

    Yes, tracking any new business generation from free booking links is easy in Guestline Insights, using a mixture of filters and visualisations on the Booking Pickup, Revenue Pickup and Booking Cancellations reports. Bookings register as channel ‘DBM’ with a Media Source Code of ‘GFBL’. 

    Full information can be found on our Support Portal. 

  • Can I track traffic to DBM?

    Customers can track traffic coming to their DBM site from free booking links using their Google Analytics account or a similar web analytics platform. 

    This works using UTM codes which are automatically included on the links from Google to DBM. 

  • What data is sent to Google?
    • Property information - name, address, post code, country, telephone number & location co-ordinates 
    • DBM room, availability, and rates information (based on the value set in 'Availability Update Window (days)' on DBM interface settings) 
  • Can I choose which rates to send to Google?

    Our connection feeds DBM rates directly to Google. Due to Google's data quality and parity rules, whatever is available in the data feed should match exactly what is available in the booking engine. 

    The advantages are that this maintains and exceeds the requirements for Google's data quality rules, and importantly there is no additional configuration required in Guestline PMS or Distribution. 

  • Will the new solution show on the Distribution Monitoring page?

    No. Automated monitoring is in place for all active connections to ensure ARI data is successfully delivered to Google. Should any issues be detected, alerts are in place to immediately flag this to the development team to resolve. 

  • Do I need a Google Hotel Center account?

    Not if you are using this direct connection by Guestline. 

    ​​​​​​​You do not need a Google Hotel Center account for free booking links when using a connectivity partner. In this case, Guestline are the connectivity partner. 

  • How do I add custom lines of text on Google?

    Adding custom lines of text is possible for paid Google Hotel Ads only. The text can be setup and customised in your Google Hotel Ads account when managing the ad campaign. It is not possible to add custom text to free booking links. 

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