Two weeks after launching a revamped hotel booking website, Google is expanding its hotel search results by including a greater number of vacation rental properties. The tech giant revealed that the move would also allow mobile users to book entire lodgings, with the emphasis on enabling travellers to make “fast and effortless decisions”.
Vacation rentals, where one rents a house from an individual, are typically large multi-bedroom apartments or villas with ample space, multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, full-sized kitchens and much more.
Participating providers include TripAdvisor, Expedia, VRBO, and Hotels.com. It’s not clear if rental industry juggernaut Airbnb has signed on. In some cases, users can book hotels directly through Google and pay via Google Pay. The hotel or booking partner receives the reservation and payment details and the partner is responsible for sending confirmations to users.
According to the Google spokesperson, the listings are “organically ranked, based on relevancy for the user,” and, “We show each listing individually with a name, description, reviews, content, price and booking link from only one partner. The reason is that it’s often difficult to determine that two listings on two sites are definitely the same.”
One can narrow down the search with price and amenity filters, plus browse photos, read reviews and see rates and availability of the vacation rental property. All property information and bookings are provided and done by the travel partner.