Earlier this week Google announced their Universal Search. And even though this is no surprise to me having seen what Google has done for Hotel and Restaurant searches, it is a clear indication that they are to take on the competition head on. (Competition like: Rollyo, Clusty, Technorati and Kayak.)

Here is an example to illustrate the Universal Search launched this week: Search for iPod. On this page note that you can refine your search through easily accessible links on the top: Web, Patents, Products, and News. However for the hospitality industry, as I mentioned above, this type of integration is not new. For several months now Google has given us quick access to related information. A search for Hotel Casa Fuster in Barcelona with the link for more information shows you related information easily organized via tabs. Same is true for restaurants “Babbo restaurant in New York ” (again click more information)

Some have speculated that Google will start its own Travel vertical search, when it started posting job openings for Google travel. I surely think that they will become a player in this space but I believe they will not resemble anything like the other OTA’s. Instead I think it will be more like the examples above. When it comes to finding flights you might also have noticed that they have tried to help. Here is an example search for La Guardia (NYC) to Barcelona . Note here that you can select travel dates, and then the links to the different vendors. In the next year we might expect them to integrate maps and display the prices as an overlay from the different vendors. While travel related advertising is the largest and thus a major income source for Google, this strategy and these types of implementations, make a lot of sense.

Google relies on all of us to accomplish its mission; “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful”. To do this they give us tools, and free to use programs that help us classify and organize this information. Google maps for example allows us to put anything on the map. Through some form standardization they get this data from us in a structured way that helps them provide more relevant search results. Similarly they allow anybody to create its own (branded) search engine through their Google COOP (custom search engine) program. While searching with regular Google might still seem like searching for a needle in a hay stack this is very useful. Below you will find a link to a Custom Search Engine that attempts to find more relevant and higher quality information about the hotel industry. For more information about this search engine please click the link.