Patrick Andrae spent eight years building an online marketplace that offers more than 14m holiday homes for rental. In September, HomeToGo listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange with a value near €1.2bn and a growth trajectory that has prompted comparisons with Airbnb.
But a holiday-maker sitting in London and searching on Google for a vacation rental in Berlin would struggle to find it, by the time they had scrolled down past a number of paid-for adverts and a link to Google’s own holiday home rental search that shows pictures, prices and a map.
It is this attention-grabbing service that particularly bothers Andrae and others across the travel sector from Wizz Air to Expedia. They say it is unfair that they have to buy a paid slot if they want to appear above Google’s proprietary accommodation and flight search, or they will appear much lower down the screen.