Google has widened its European search redesign for tourism queries, adding things-to-do searches to the aggregator and supplier units it shows in the European Economic Area.
Google’s November 9 Search Central changelog and its regional differences page, last updated the same day, confirm support for “things to do” queries in both units. The addition places attractions, tours and activities inside a search framework that already covered hotels, flights, long-distance trains or buses, products and local businesses.
The same regional page also lists structured data carousels for EEA queries related to hotels, local businesses, things to do, products, ground transportation, flights and vacation rentals. That is a separate beta rich result for eligible list pages and depends on structured data such as ItemList combined with supported LocalBusiness, Product or Event types.
How the two European units work
The aggregator unit is for Vertical Search Services, including online travel agencies, comparison shopping services, metasearch engines and directories. Google says eligible aggregators can populate the unit with results relevant to a query, with the top-ranked provider expanded by default and alternative providers available where present. Only one aggregator unit appears at a time.
For participation, Google says an aggregator must be approved as a Vertical Search Service, have relevant content, provide the required data, and comply with Search content policies. For local business and things-to-do queries, Google points to its Local and things to do Point of Interest Feed. For flights and long-distance transport, the unit can use real-time APIs.
The supplier unit sits beside the aggregator unit and is built for direct providers. Google’s examples include individual hotels, airlines, brick-and-mortar businesses and service providers. The supplier unit appears only when the aggregator unit appears. Google says direct providers do not need to provide additional data beyond what Search can crawl, although supplier results can be enhanced with feeds where available.
The DMA fight behind the search redesign
The travel update sits inside a much larger fight over Google’s Search design in Europe. On July 23, 2026, the European Commission said it fined Google €890 million across two DMA decisions, including €460 million for self-preferencing in Google Search. The Commission said Google gave its own shopping, hotels, transport and sports results more favorable treatment than third-party services.
Google has argued that the DMA changes reduce product quality and can shift traffic toward intermediaries. Reuters reported on September 8 that Google had rolled out a broader European Search redesign and told the news agency the changes marked the largest reduction in Search service quality in the company’s 29-year search history. Google also told Reuters the design favored vertical search services connected to sectors including hotels, airlines and restaurants.
The November addition of things-to-do queries extends that same tension into attractions and experiences. The Commission’s position is that gatekeepers must not favor their own services in ranking.
Who is affected
Tourism aggregators are the clearest group affected by the new documentation. A booking marketplace, metasearch engine or activity directory serving EEA users now has a documented route to express interest, but that route depends on approval and usable data. The update is not a general SEO lift for every site that publishes travel content.
Direct suppliers also have a clearer documented route, but a narrower one. A museum, local tour operator, attraction, transport experience or ticketed venue needs crawlable pages that accurately describe the specific experience. Prices, availability, opening hours, location details, booking rules and imagery can help describe the experience. Google says crawlable information can be enough for eligibility, with feeds available to enhance supplier results.
Editorial publishers and city-guide sites should treat the change as a competing search surface rather than a new eligibility path. A guide to “things to do in Paris” may still serve searchers, but Google’s aggregator and supplier units are built around service providers and inventory, not general articles. If these units appear above or near organic results, click-through rates for guide content could change in EEA markets.
For Canadian businesses, the main limit is geography. A Canadian travel platform or tour supplier that serves European users may need to watch EEA Search Console data separately from Canada, the U.S. and other markets. A Canadian publisher writing about European destinations should also separate EEA impressions from global travel traffic before attributing any movement to the new units.
What to watch next
Google has documented support for the query type, but documentation alone does not show how often the units will appear or which providers will get meaningful traffic. Over the next few weeks, the useful signals will be EEA impressions by query type, click-through rate changes on activity and city-guide pages, and whether searchers are being sent to direct supplier pages or aggregator pages.
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