On Monday, Google said it is acquiring the Frommer's travel-guide business in a bid to attract more advertising dollars tied to online-travel bookings and local-business information. Google is buying Frommer's from publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Google paid around $25 million for Frommer's, according to a person briefed on the deal, which hasn't yet closed. But the deal is more significant for its strategy than its price tag.

With Zagat and Frommer's, Google is betting it can become a trusted guide for travel and local-business information by using expert ratings and aggregating online comments from thousands of customers, the way Yelp.com and TripAdvisor.com do as per a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Frommer's deal follows Google's 2011 acquisition of Zagat Survey, whose reviews and ratings of millions of businesses have since been incorporated into Google+ local-business listings. Google said Monday that the Frommer's brand would be melded with the Zagat brand. Frommer's data about local businesses around the world could boost the Google+ business listings—where both Zagat ratings and individual customer reviews are displayed—and Google Maps.

Frommer's is more evidence that Google has grown fonder of professionally produced content. There are other examples: It recently took an equity stake in Machinima Inc., which creates video content mainly for Google's YouTube video site.

Google in 2010 made its first big foray into the travel industry by acquiring flight-data company ITA Software, which powers the flight-booking tools of numerous websites.

Last year Google launched its own flight-booking service.

Google generates about $2 billion to $3 billion per year from selling travel-related ads on its search engine and hotel-and flight-booking service, with travel sites Expedia Inc and Priceline Inc. being among the top advertisers.

The U.S.-based leisure-travel industry spent $2.56 billion on online advertising last year, up 40.6% from a year earlier, according to research firm eMarketer Inc. Last year U.S.-based travelers spent more than $100 billion to book trips online, a figure that is expected to grow by around 10% annually, eMarketer said.

Google said Monday it hasn't yet decided whether the Frommer's guidebooks will continue to be published in print or whether they will eventually migrate entirely to online.

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