Google is rolling out a redesigned hotel search experience on desktop, which mirrors the redesign introduced to mobile search earlier this year.
The redesign offers a more modern look and feel, as well as a set of features you might expect from a dedicated travel site like TripAdvisor.
The hotel search experience on desktop includes:
- Photos from the hotel and other travelers
- Hotel information, such as neighborhood and location
- Hotel reviews from around the web that can be searched by keywords like “air conditioning”
- A detailed description of the hotel, complete with highlights and amenities
- Price comparisons across most major booking sites
Google has also brought its hotel grade feature to desktop search, which was previously only available on mobile.
This feature involves Google assigning a grade to a hotel, from 1 to 5, purely based on where it’s located.
Hotels are graded on a 5-point scale – with 1 being a terrible location and 5 being a spectacular location.
The overall score is an average of three individual scores (which are also graded on a 5-point scale):
- Proximity to things to do
- Proximity to transit
- Airport access
Each of these scores is calculated based on data from Google Maps.
In order to access many of these new features, users have to first conduct a general search such as “hotels in Chicago.”
From there, users have to click on the local 3-pack of hotel suggestions that appears below the paid search results.
Searching for a specific hotel by name will not return the new design for hotel searches.
