Google today announced it will add Covid – related health information and safety measures on its Google Travel booking service. When you search for a hotel on the search giant travel platform you will be able to see the measures a certain establishment is putting in place to curb the pandemic. Examples of what you will find include, cleaning procedures in use, if contact-free check-ins are available and many more.
At the moment, Google Travel is showing this information only for the hotel chains it has partnered with. They include Hilton, Radisson, Four seasons, Hyatt, Best Western, Marriott, Comfort Inn and Holiday Inn. The company also plans on bringing in vacation partners including large vacation rental services and travel agents.
Individual hotels can also get themselves listed on the Covid measures, all they need to do is fill in health and safety information on a new tool in the Google My Business platform. It seems this luxury – at least for the moment – does not extend to other businesses.
Note that, Covid related information is only available for users who search a hotel in the Google Travel platform, doing the search on Google Maps won’t returns these results. However, Maps have a layer of Covid updates, it provides data about the number of cases per 100,000 across a given area. On top of that, it informs you of COVID – 19 checkpoints that you may encounter on your planned route.