A relaxing weekend getaway can inspire loathing long before you leave home: Hotel hunting can take forever with so many options to consider. Airfarewatchdog.com, a site owned by TripAdvisor (TRIP), says it has devised a better way to book a room, with software that filters the hundreds of lodging choices in large cities down to a manageable 20. ”No more drowning in thousands of options,” the company promises in the launch announcement of Hotelwatchdog, an extension of the airfare site.
TripAdvisor executives presume that most travelers are motivated mainly by price, followed by a hotel’s location and the reviews of fellow travelers. The algorithm powering Hotelwatchdog also tracks hotels’ past prices to determine a 45-day average, offering a quick comparison to the quote for your stay. The price data comes from online travel agencies and hotel-specific booking websites.
That relatively compact list of 20 options requires no small amount of faith on a traveler’s part. For one thing, you’re trusting that at least some of those options are near where you want to be; most options in larger cities are centrally located, near downtown. The top two options in a search for hotel rooms in San Francisco—a three-night stay next month—were Hyatt Hotels (H) properties, one in the financial district and one near Fisherman’s Wharf. Hotelwatchdog has a small button to click for full search results.
A further potential hitch is the subjectivity of hotel reviews and the degree of faith one places in the 190 million reviews at TripAdvisor, which calls itself the world’s largest travel site. The suburban Boston-based company, which was spun off from Expedia (EXPE) in a public offering in 2011, has reviews for about 4.4 million hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions. The company operates two dozen websites related to travel.
Hotelwatchdog’s revenue comes from referral fees from sending customers to hotel booking sites such as Orbitz (OWW), Priceline (PCLN), and Hotels.com.
