Google is making changes to travel searches to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), while the company argues that the changes worsen the user experience. Prominent sponsored links, booking recommendations and price comparisons in results outside Europe are ranked according to business relationships, while the European Commission says this practice distorts competition.
Under the new system, real-time price and availability information will be removed from hotel and flight searches. A link to a specialized search engine will appear at the top of the page, followed by two links containing less detail; below that, a carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants without price or availability information will be displayed. Rankings will be determined by Google’s search algorithm rather than its commercial interests. The changes are being rolled out gradually in the European Union. Google has 60 days to comply, with the deadline set for September 23. After that, the company could face a fine of up to 5% of its global revenue. Results in other regions will not change.
Google says the new results will give online intermediaries an advantage at the expense of local businesses and lead to additional traffic losses. Tests reportedly showed that users liked the results less and rewrote their queries. The company said that in 2024, the previous EU requirements had reduced free direct-booking traffic by 30%. Google and the other “gatekeepers” covered by the DMA are opposing the law, while the United States is threatening the EU with sanctions.
Why it matters
At the center of the change is reducing the role of commercial relationships in determining visibility in travel searches and tying results to algorithmic criteria. This approach could affect how hotels, airlines and restaurants reach users directly, while also altering the balance of competition between online intermediaries and local businesses. For users, the key question is whether results offering less pricing and availability information will make comparison and booking processes more difficult; for businesses, it is the extent to which free direct traffic will decline. Google’s objections concerning the user experience and business traffic conflict with the European Commission’s competition concerns; the compliance period and potential penalties will also determine the regulatory cost of this dispute for the company.
Background
Google is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: over the past 90 days, we have published 29 news reports mentioning this name; the latest is dated September 9, 2026.