Recently, Google unveiled a new search program called Google Hotel Finder. It’s currently in Beta testing, so it’s not as polished as it will eventually end up being. There’s some good aspects to it, and some bad aspects, but either way it represents a significant change in how people can find hotels online.

Is It Actually Good For Finding Downtown Hotels?

Mother of God, yes. The biggest and best new tool this function boast is the ability of it’s user to draw a box around the location they want to find a hotel in, and ONLY see the hotels within that box. If you’re looking for a Downtown Calgary hotel, just draw yourself a nice little square on the map and pick the best of what pops up.

It Does Rely Heavily on Google Reviews

There is one major flaw in how the tool pulls up hotels, though. It ranks the hotels that it finds based solely on the number and quality of Google reviews it has. Not TripAdvisor reviews, not Kayak reviews, not Expedia, just Google. This flaw undoes some of the fairness that geographical search implies. If there are two Downtown Calgary Hotels, and one of them has more Google reviews than the other, it will be ranked higher, regardless of how many positive reviews either one of them has from other travel review outlets.

Also, get ready to be bombarded with Google Review requests from hotels.

Overall it’s…

Pretty great for travellers. I would strongly suggest looking up your chosen hotel on some review sites before booking it, but the tool itself is remarkably easy to use. It really helps when you know what area of the city you want to stay in. Want to stay in a Downtown Calgary hotel for next year’s Stampede? Just draw a square around Stampede Fairgrounds and see what pops up.

Related articles

• Things To Do In Downtown Calgary On A Chilly November Evening (nuvohotelsuites.com)
• The Best Halloween Parties in Downtown Calgary (nuvohotelsuites.com)
• Calgary downtown office demand ‘astounding’ (calgaryherald.com)
• Move over, Expedia: Google Hotel Finder Is Here (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
• Google Tests Its Hotel Finder As A New Comparison Ad Atop Search Results (searchengineland.com) 

Jonathan Meier is the Online Marketing and Social Media Coordinator who is urging you to donate to you moustached peers for Movember. Do it for Nuvo Hotel Suites, a small boutique hotel in Downtown Calgary, Alberta (to learn more about the Nuvo peruse the rest of the site, or check out our Facebook Page). When he’s not at his desk, he’s usually out in the mountains near his hometown of Canmore where he can be seen climbing, skiing, or doing anything at all that doesn’t involve computers.