[style_image width=»250″ height=»300″ image=»https://www.montsepenarroya.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Captura_hotel_finder.jpg» align=»alignright» alt=»Google Hotel Finder » url=»http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/#search;l=Barcelona,+Spain;d=2012-05-27;n=1;ar=4147697,221841,4143466,204652,4132435,209711 ,4131365,220221;v=l;h=9712185766256903815;si=d8813345″ border=»yes» lightbox=»yes» fade=»yes»]This month of May a new version of Google Hotel Finder, a metasearch engine that compares hotel reservation prices from websites that register for this service (hotels and online travel agencies). This service began its first tests a few months ago as an experiment by Google, in order to fully enter the tourism sector.
The launch has only been carried out in the USA, for the moment, but by browsing through the results you can find hotels from all over the world, including Barcelona.
Expedia, GetaRoom, Hotels.com and Booking are the main content providers for this service. However, the hotel listings I have reviewed link directly to the hotel's website (good for Google!!!), and only when you want to make a reservation directly from the portal, it offers you the suppliers' website, although it also offers you, again, to go to the hotel's own website.
Hotels can be searched by availability, price, star rating and user rating.
Each listing contains a summary of the hotel's main features, comments that Google syndicates from Tripadvisor, Expedia and other providers, a gallery of images (also taken from other websites), and a map showing the location of the hotel in question.
In addition to its own website, Google Hotel Finder is part of the Google Universal Search and therefore its content also appears on the results pages of searches made on Google. Hotels appear right between the Adwords and the results resulting from natural positioning (see image below these lines), this is one of the new features of the new version.
[style_image width=»» height=»» image=»https://www.montsepenarroya.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Google-Hotel-Finder.jpg» align=»aligncenter» alt=»Google Hotel Finder» url=»http://www.google.com/hotelfinder» border=»yes» lightbox=»yes» fade=»yes»]
The downside of this service is that the natural results are increasingly far from the top positions. Google has already accustomed us to seeing videos, books, images, online stores (with the new Google Shopping), before the natural results. Now it will also include the comparison of hotel prices, when the search is related to this topic.
You will find more information about this service on the website of Google Hotel Finder: http://www.google.com/hotelfinder
I hope this information is useful to you.
We talk to each other.
4 responses
My question is: can it be done using the Google search engine in the US or is it only available for hotels in the US? A change in the DNS on your computer would allow you to see the results for your hotel (if it attracts clients from there) or would you try it out when it arrives in Spain?
Greetings2
Good idea. Although we should change the DNS not only of the computer, but of our internet connection…this is more difficult. The easiest thing is to have a friend there who can send you screenshots 🙂
Let's hope they transfer it to Spain soon so we can avoid this investigation.
A big hug Dario.
Hello, You mentioned this application a while ago and we were looking at it. For us, the hotel finder page is the same as the one that appears today in Google results, which also gives you price information by date. The mistake we found is that it gives you the prices of large vertical portals such as booking or venere but not the price of the hotel website (there is only a link to the hotel website, but the price does not appear).
As developers, we tried to get Google to take the price from our booking engine, but today it is not possible. This way, the results are not the best to show to the user.
What do you think?
I suppose that when this service is launched in Spain, it will allow the entry of local providers. On the other hand, I have seen that the list of current providers appears in the form of a list under the title of “Ads”, so I understand that they are paying to be providers of the reservation service. In the rules of use, it is not clear to me whether they pay by commission or by click or by transaction made. I imagine that when the service finally comes to market, they will clarify this point, allow entry to new providers and when exporting the service, they will adapt to local providers… but well… without a crystal ball it is difficult to know what Google will do. We will have to wait.
Thanks for your contribution Paula.
A hug.