It has been confirmed that Google is now rolling out a new user interface and feature set around local reviews for hotels. Earlier this month, Google started testing new hotel reviews features, and they are starting to roll out. Sergey Alakov was the first notice these features rolling out.
A spokesperson from Google confirmed this and had this to say:
Google is continually improving the information shown to people to help them make decisions about where to go. When people are searching for a hotel to stay at, we want to ensure we make it easy for people to find useful and relevant web reviews about that place to help them make informed decisions.
The new hotel reviews interface added some core features. Here are some of them:
- Third-party reviews show in a carousel for some of the listings.
- The review overview section has a more robust interface showing stronger colors and reviews also by attribute.
- The detailed review section will show a graphical user interface based on type of travel.
Here are some screen shots from Search Engine Land that we might be able to see now of the new interface:
I was unable to replicate this.