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Google throws the travel industry a bone by making hotel listings in Search free
Similar changes were made to flights and retailers last year
Hotels have had kind of a rough year. So has everyone, of course, but it's safe to say that the travel industry is in a bit of a crisis at the moment. That's the context Google used to announce that as of now, it's free for hotels to list specific room rates and dates in the price comparison tool at Google.com/travel.
Timeline view on Google Maps gets new Trips tab, coming to Google Photos
If you're traveling, you can see your hotel's COVID-19 response in detail at google.com/travel
We'll make no judgment of whether you're traveling for the holidays or not — the time of year always seems to amp up the urgency of things. If you do, Google may let you know what your hotel is doing to keep the coronavirus at bay. Even if you don't, the company will be introducing a couple of new ways to look over your travel memories.
Google tries to make travelling less stressful during COVID-19 with new information on flights and hotels
View the percentages of open hotels and operating flights
We're well into the summer tourist season now, but COVID-19 has thrown travellers for a loop. Since many vacations start with a simple online search, Google has been helping relay key info like coronavirus travel advisories and restrictions. Now the company is announcing a few new travel-focused features to make hitting the road easier during the pandemic.
Taking a trip can be a stressful time; remembering tickets, hotels, rentals, and plans can easily become a bit overwhelming. TripIt attempts to ease that burden by allowing you to link your email to its planning services and spitting out a professional-looking and easy-to-read itinerary. So far, you've had to manually enter any meetings or miscellaneous entries into your TripIt app when you wanted to add something besides travel. Now, TripIt is helping to streamline that process with seamless support for adding meetings and invitations to your itinerary.
Anytime you open Google Maps, you land on a nice overview of where you are and an Explore tab that helps you find nearby places and see restaurants, events, and attractions around you. Moving around the map and using that same tab is also helpful when trying to plan for a short day-trip, a weekend getaway, or a long vacation. But Google Maps is working on speeding up the discovery of surrounding places even more by offering additional search shortcuts.
In a world that bombards us with things to do, it can be tough to stay on top of everything we think is worth checking out. Movies we want to see, music to listen to, books to read, restaurants to try, and places to go, there's just so much to do and almost no central way to keep track of all of this. You can use a simple list app, like Google Keep for example, but where's the fun in that? Now there's a new way to stay on top of your bucket list: Soon.
Recently, Google announced many new features coming to its travel planning services, including flight and hotel insights. Those changes are only a small part of the overhauled hotel listing layout that's rolling out to Google Maps right now. While the design appears to be cosmetic at first, with plenty of the new Material accents everywhere, you can quickly spot many useful new additions as well as some very worrying feature removals.
Travel is not a new area of interest for Google, with lots of customized cards in Search aimed at getting you the best deals on flights and hotels, as well as the dedicated Google Trips app to bring all of your bookings together and offer additional recommendations and guides. Further enhancements to Google Search are going to make it even more convenient for planning trips.
A new version of Google Maps began rolling out late last night. The immediately visible changes are semi-cosmetic, including some slightly more informative details, but there aren't any obviously huge additions to see here. As we turn to a teardown, there are signs that reviewers will soon be able to start writing, then save their work as a draft. Also, if you're going to be driving in Jakarta, Indonesia, Google Maps is going to make it easier to deal with odd-even driving restrictions.
In its quest to make our lives easier, Google has recently taken on the travel industry by giving us search tools for flights and hotels, as well as an app to help us plan and organize trips we've already booked. Google Search already shows when a slight adjustment to travel dates can save us money, but now it's adding more robust tools for people whose travel dates are more flexible.
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Each year in the US, it's estimated that somewhere between ten and twenty thousand people are victims of human trafficking, mostly for some form of prostitution or abusive labor. A disproportionate amount of these victims are women, children, and immigrants. Law enforcement agencies and non-profit groups all over the country attempt to stop the trade of human lives, but the clandestine nature of the operators and the cooperation of apparently legitimate businesses makes actual tracking and prosecution difficult, and only a tiny fraction of the estimated victims are freed.
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A relatively small Google Maps update to v9.8 began rolling out last week, adding batch photo uploads and a way to restrict bookings from showing up in location screens. It turns out there was another secret feature waiting to be shown off. In the latest version, a search for one of four key phrases will pop up results related to your personal bookings. Just try asking for my events, my flights, my hotels, or my reservations to see a short list of personalized results.
Groupon is a good resource to turn to for people who love to buy or experience new things but hate paying full price. The service offers discounts on everything ranging from refurbished electronics to entrees for two at the local bar. It also does vacations, and now Groupon has released a separate Android app that's dedicated entirely to getting away.
I'm planning a trip to India and Ireland next month, and since it'll be only the second time I've left North America, I could use a few directions. Google's various services are fine for that as they are, but the latest addition to Search is a handy one for anyone on the road. If you've booked your hotel online and received a receipt or confirmation in your Gmail inbox, Google will make a note of it.
Orbitz.com, one of the top online travel/booking resources around, has just released a new app – Hotels by Orbitz, meant to help users find, book, and enjoy hotels in thousands of destinations world-wide, whether you need a room tonight, or want to book a future stay.
Hyatt Corporation, looking to make customers' hotel experience just that much easier, released an official Hyatt app to Google's Play Store recently. The app allows users to find Hyatt hotels across the globe, viewing details about each location, booking, managing reservations, and more, all from their Android-powered device.
[New App] Airbnb Debuts Official Android App - Search And Book Over 100,000 Unique Accommodations Instantly
Airbnb Debuts Official Android App
Airbnb, a popular community offering unique accommodations to travelers around the world (despite some recent controversy), released its official Android App today, making finding a place to stay on the go easier than ever.