This insight summarises Google's New Hotel Search in Europe: What It Looks Like Now by Bailey Schulz for Skift.
The change. Following a €460 million antitrust fine under the Digital Markets Act, Google has restructured its EU travel search results. The redesign splits results into two visually distinct units and applies to Search, AI Overview, and AI Mode across 30 European markets.
Two units, unequal treatment.
- Aggregator unit — prominently features OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia. Rich, feature-complete.
- Supplier unit — for hotels and airlines direct. Deliberately limited: no date filters, no live pricing, no descriptive tags.
- Vacation rentals unit — removed entirely from EU results.
Google's framing vs. the industry's. Google argues the DMA-forced changes degrade the consumer experience and hurt small suppliers. Travel-tech advocates counter that Google chose the worse experience on the direct-supplier side — and that the real compliance test is whether Google ends self-preferencing in AI results, not just in classic Search.
Geographic split. U.S. users still see the unchanged, feature-rich hotel unit prioritised by Google. The regulatory arbitrage between markets is now visible in the product.
Why this matters for hotels.
- European travellers face a materially worse direct-booking experience on Google.
- OTA share is likely to rise in EU markets through algorithmic placement alone.
- The precedent will shape AI-powered travel discovery worldwide — regulators are watching whether "no self-preferencing" applies to AI Overview and AI Mode, not just the ten blue links.
- Hotels should reassess their EU direct-channel funnels and their exposure to Google's AI surfaces specifically.