Google's third big foray in travel: Buying Frommer's for $23 milion
Updated: The purchase price is a relatively paltry $23 million or so, according to a source quoted in NYT, which according to our source is only slightly more than 1X of Frommer's 2011 revenues of around $20 million.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's planned purchase of Frommer's follows its 2011 Zagat deal, whose reported price was under $66 million. Together, the moves give Google owned editorial and review material for local and travel-oriented search experiences rather than relying solely on outside publishers.
The earlier Zagat acquisition had already prompted concerns that Google's search position could amplify its own content. Frommer's extends that question from restaurant reviews into travel guides, while the reported $23 million price underscores how little Google needs to spend to obtain an established brand and archive.
First-order effects
- Google gains the Frommer's travel brand and its guide content to support its local-review offerings, while John Wiley & Sons exits the brand.
- Google can combine Frommer's editorial material with the Zagat review asset it acquired in 2011.
Second-order effects
- TripAdvisor and Yelp face a search rival with more owned travel and local content, raising the importance of their direct consumer relationships and differentiated reviews.
- Travel publishers that depend on Google for discovery face a platform that is becoming a content owner in the same results pages.
Third-order effects
- If Google continues buying trusted vertical brands, travel discovery may shift toward search platforms that control both the referral channel and the underlying guide content.
- The Zagat and Frommer's deals strengthen the case for scrutiny of how a dominant search service presents its own local and travel material alongside independent publishers.
The trend: Google is building owned content and review assets around high-intent local and travel searches, blurring the boundary between search distributor and travel publisher.