Google enters deal with startup Room 77 to improve hotel search features

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has struck a deal with startup Room 77 to boost its current hotel search efforts. The company, which makes hotel-booking software, will be joining Google’s hotel-search team that is currently working various efforts related to Google’s Hotel Finder product. In addition, Google is said to have also struck deals to “add more hotel-related content to its search results, including photos and room rate and availability information.”

Room 77 provides hotel search, both on the web and on mobile devices. Its technology will help Google remake its search experience for hotels to look more like travel sites such as Priceline Group Inc., Expedia Inc. and TripAdvisor Inc.

Room 77 users can search for and book a hotel without leaving its site or mobile app. This makes it easier to book rooms without going back and forth between links, a potentially frustrating process on smartphones.

Room 77 has raised approximately $43 million in funding since being founded in 2010, but financial details related to its deal with Google weren’t disclosed.