Google Launches Hotel Finder

Google rolled out its Hotel Finder service, which is called as an experiment in finding the perfect hotel. Users can input a location, date for check-in and check-out, and the price range of the hotel. They can also choose the class and rating of the hotel.

Hotel Finder also lets users search via shape, where the users can outline the boundary of the search area. This feature is similar to Yahoo’s Sketch-A-Search, a technology that the company launched in 2010.

Hotel Finder is similar to Google Places in a way except it only gives out hotels in its search results. It could be a complementary service for its ITA travel integration. The new service is not a beta but is considered an experiment.

Google announced that it has plans to acquire ITA for $700 million in July 2010. It specializes in organizing airline data such as availability, flight times, and prices. Google said that acquiring ITA will help it produce new flight search services to simplify the process of comparing different options, searching for available flights, and buying tickets. The deal was recently approved by the Justice Department.

Hotel Finder is a good way to promote Google’s AdWords. After reading the reviews made by other users for hotels, the person can click on a drop-down menu for listings from Expedia, Travelocity, and other review sites.

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Google Launches Hotel Finder Service In A Bid To Extract More Out Of Google Maps

What will Google think of next? That is the question many are asking after Google announced its brand new tool called “Hotel Finder”.

According to Google, this new service is designed to help you locate your “ideal” hotel, and draws upon many of the search and filtering features found inside Google Maps. The tool will only work for U.S. hotels for now, but Google has made it clear that it will make the tool available for other countries in the future.

Of course, there are established websites that do a pretty good job of letting you find that perfect hotel, but Google thinks it can do one better by drawing on its vast database of search engine data. The new tool will let you define your ideal location; make shortlists; filter the most popular; compare a hotel’s rates against your “typical rate”, and compare rates among multiple hotels.

It’s important to find out that “Hotel Finder” is only that at present; Google won’t be handling bookings and things of that nature. Which raises the obvious question: if other sites let you find, and book a hotel, why should anyone switch to this new service? Google obviously is banking on its vast storehouse of information, and the hope is users won’t mind dealing directly with the hotel or some other third party booking agent, once they locate their “ideal” hotel.

Like most of Google’s services, Hotel Finder will rely heavily on its parent name. No doubt Google will be able to compete against other sites; the only question is will be able to offer a better hotel finding experience. Time will tell.

Google has so many services, it’s sometimes hard to keep count. Watch the video below to see some of the cool stuff you can do with Google.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ftBJmgAYo

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