Japanese investment firm MIRAI Corporation finds that in 2019 - with nearly three-quarters of travelers using metasearch engines in their search process - metasearch engines like Trivago, TripAdvisor, Kayak, Skyscanner and latecomer Google Hotel Ads dominate travel ad investment. (See chart above.)

After starting essentially from scratch in 2013, Google now dominates metasearch, accounting for 67% of all investment in metasearch engines in 2019.

And between Google Ads (32%) and Google Hotel Ads (43%) Google is taking in 75% of total hotel ad spend in 2019.

Reasons for Google's dramatic growth in hotel metasearch include:

• Continual product improvement
• Popularity of Google search (90%+ share everywhere but mainland China)
• Hotel Ads Commission Program business model that fits with how hotels have traditionally paid for marketing
• Book on Google booking assistant

So far, hotels are benefiting along with Google - but at the cost of ownership of customers.

How will this play out? Stay tuned.