If you sell tours, attraction tickets or event tickets through Google Ads, your account may look different this autumn. That’s not a glitch. Google is moving its travel ads into a single new campaign type, and some advertisers have had their campaigns moved over automatically.
“Closest equivalent settings” isn’t the same as identical settings.
Here’s what has changed, who it affects, and what to check this week, in plain English.
What’s changed
Google has launched a campaign type called Search campaigns for Travel. It brings travel ads that use your live prices and availability together with normal text ads and Google’s AI Max features, all in one campaign.
It started with hotels and car hire. On 8 July 2026, Google opened it up, as a beta, to two more groups: Things to Do (attractions, guided tours and experiences) and Events (ticket sales).
At the same time, Google started moving older Travel campaigns into the new format. From Q3 2026, it has been automatically creating new Search campaigns for Travel that copy the closest matching settings from your old ones.
Who this affects
This matters to you if you run any of these:
- A tour or day-trip company
- An attraction, museum, theme park or activity centre
- An experience business, such as cookery classes, boat trips or escape rooms
- A business selling tickets to events, gigs or festivals
- A hotel, B&B or car hire company already using Google’s travel ads
It affects you most if you already run Things to Do or Travel campaigns, because yours may have been migrated without you doing anything.
Already running Things to Do ads? Check these four things
Automatic migrations save time, but “closest equivalent settings” isn’t the same as identical settings. Log in and check:
- Duplicate campaigns. Is your old campaign still running next to the new one? Google advises pausing the old campaign once the new one is live. If both run, they can compete against each other and muddy your reporting.
- Campaigns that weren’t moved. Only active campaigns are migrated automatically. If you’d paused a seasonal campaign, it may not have come across, so check before your busy season.
- Budgets and bids. Compare the new campaign’s daily budget and bid strategy against the old one. Small differences add up quickly.
- Your product feed. These ads are built from your feed of tours, prices and availability. Out-of-date prices or missing time slots mean wasted clicks or missed bookings.
It’s also worth checking your account notifications and emails from Google, as they contain the specific dates for your account.
Never run them? Here’s what it means for you
If you’ve only ever used standard Search or Performance Max, this is a new way to show your prices and availability directly in Google results. A traveller searching for things to do in your area can see what you offer, what it costs and when it’s available before they click.
The catch is that you need a product feed. For Things to Do, that means listing your activities through Google’s Things to Do Center. Most businesses do this through their booking platform or a Google connectivity partner, so check whether your booking system already supports it.
Without a clean, up-to-date feed, these campaigns won’t perform, however good the rest of your account is.
My take: test it, don’t bet the business on it
The idea makes sense. Tours, attractions and events behave a lot like hotel bookings: prices change, availability is limited, and people book for specific dates and places. A campaign built around live feed data should handle that better than a generic search campaign.
But for Things to Do and Events, this is still a beta. Google hasn’t fully confirmed which bidding strategies, ad assets, reporting or feed requirements will be available. Features may change while you’re using it.
So my advice is:
- Don’t switch off what’s working. Keep your existing Search and Performance Max campaigns running.
- Test with a set budget. Give the new campaign a fixed, limited budget for a set period.
- Judge it on bookings, not clicks. Compare cost per booking and revenue against your existing campaigns, using the same tracking for both.
- Expect some bumps. Budget for a few weeks of learning before you decide.
Not sure where your account stands? I’ll check it for free
If you’re a tour, attraction or events business and you’re not sure whether your campaigns were migrated properly, I’ll take a look for free. I’ll check for duplicate campaigns, campaigns that weren’t moved, budget and bid changes, and feed issues, and tell you in plain English what needs fixing.
No obligation and no jargon. Email me at mabz@pursuit-media.com or fill in the contact form, and mention “travel campaign check”.
Sources
Keep the thinking connected: PPC & Google Ads for tour operators or explore Google Ads and paid search management.