Google knows what hotel you are staying at, now suggests stuff in the area

Google is continuing their push to expand their contextually aware services to each and every one of us. Last week they announced an update to Maps that adds an Explore button that only shows at the right moment, based on factors including your location. This week, Google Search is adding the ability to help you out when on vacation or business trip, by allowing you to use your hotel as a point of reference.

If you have a hotel reservation in your Gmail inbox, you can now expect Google to know where that hotel is and perform searches for things in the area without needing to pump in the address or hotel name yourself.

On your Android device, open up Google Now, or just mutter those magic words “OK, Google” and follow up with a query like “give me directions to my hotel” or “show me restaurants around my hotel.” Google says you can ask for things to do, eat or see nearby your hotel, all without having to remember even the name of that place you are staying.

This feels like a great companion and extension to the contextually aware Maps Explore feature from last week. The new Maps feature shows you things to do, eat or see nearby your current location, or nearby a specific alternative location that you manually type into the app. The recommendations are presented differently based on the time of the day, current weather and more, in an effort to provide you the best info possible at the time you need it.

It will be interesting to see if Google implements our hotel aware inquiries as normal searches, or if they tie in any of the contextually aware Maps Explore features outlined above.

Are you off for a vacation, let us know how Google’s new hotel aware features work for you.