Google quietly unveiled its new product — Google Hotels — a hotel search, booking website. News about the site was announced in a blog post on March 7, by Richard Holden, Google’s vice president of product management for travel.
According to Holden the company uses its famous search operation to provide clients with a more customised experience. For instance, once users decide on a destination and look for flights, a price insight feature — that shows whether prices are high, typical or low compared to what they would usually find — shows up. The website also informs users if prices won’t get any lower or if they’re bound to increase soon. That way, users can make a decision quickly.
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The website also lets people filter their hotel search with the new “Deals” filter. Holden explained, “This filter uses machine learning to highlight hotels where one or more of our partners offer rates that are significantly lower than the usual price for that hotel or similar hotels nearby.”
Users can also view a hotel’s highlights — like a fancy pool, if it’s a luxury hotel, or if it’s popular with families — with expanded pages for photos and reviews curated with machine learning.
In addition to these features, Google Hotels also offers a price filter option where users can set their “price limits and see only the destinations you can fly to within this range”.
Google Hotels is aiming to compete with AirBnb, which recently acquired HotelTonight, another last-minute hotel-booking service.
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