Room77 is trying to provide you with a lot of infomation about hotel rooms before you reserve one, but they’re taking it much further than anyone has before. Part of what they do is match up basic criteria; high or low floor, near an elevator, etc, which is quite useful on it’s own. However, they take it a step further by generating previews of what you can see out the window of your hotel room by using the Google Earth Plug-in. The example that I saw on their home page really shows you what it’s about:
Of course, a site like this will get better with time — even if they don’t add a thing. As Google Earth adds more 3D buildings and trees, the views from the rooms will become increasingly accurate. That being said, Room77 is working very hard to add new features and to make things more useful, and I’ll certainly be checking them out next time I need to book a hotel room.
Have you tried them before? How accurate is the rendered view compared to what you really saw? I’d love to see a side-by-side comparison of those.
(via Tnooz)
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
its an amazing
I’ve tried this! this is really cool!
I wonder if there will be network effects, ie more customers needed so more hotels will put their rooms on Room77.
It seems like there is suddenly an abundance of hotel search engine growth and innovation. HipMunk are making a funky UI, and HotelSweep are going direct but using information extraction to cover hotels not available online.