Travelgrove launches Hotel Search Engine
Travelgrove’s hotel search now allows users to see results from major travel sites as well as hotel chains. The idea behind travel search engines is that they can search other sites simultaneously in order to find out which site offers the cheapest rates for a particular hotel.
Besides the ability to compare the prices for one hotel from several merchants, the company is betting on powerful sorting features. A new web technology called AJAX, which is often used in context with the new Web or Web 2.0, allows the user to quickly filter and sort results without ever refreshing the page or waiting for results to reload. An oversized map furthermore enables users to get even more precise with their hotel searches. If you want to find out about whether specific hotels have an Internet connection, a restaurant, or include a free breakfast, all you need to do is filter on the result page and you will see everything update lightning fast.
According to Mr. Serduelt, CTO and co-Founder of the company, “Finding proper algorithms that would ultimately match the same hotels from different websites, was a widely underestimated task.” It’s extremely challenging to find ways that can match names and locations which may have different names or spellings in different languages. At the beginning, Travelgrove’s hotel search will be available in English only, but other languages like German, Italian, and French will follow soon in order to make it a truly global application.
