Google Now Lets Us Virtually Stalk Hotels Without Ever Actually Visiting Them
Where: Anywhere in the world
You know that "Street View" button on Googlemaps that lets you walk around a street and see what buildings are there? And once in a while you just find pictures of people doing funny things to pose for the Street View car camera?
Well, Google has now introduced a feature that allows you to walk right into a hotel and poke around inside. Yup! Provenance Hotels in Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma are some of the first to test out the service (that works out well for them, since their hotels are so often chock-full of cool art and other knick knacks).
Of course, this could easily work against other hotels that don't have flashy lobbies or well-lit hallways. But then again, why would we want to be staying in those places anyway?
Google has targeted the 360-degree virtual tours so far to hotels, restaurants, offices, and, interestingly, archaeological sites in Mexico. The panoramic photos basically give you a complete walk-through of any locale, and either entice you to visit in person, or satisfy your curiosity so you don't have to actually go yourself.
We'll certainly be curious to see which other hotels sign up for the all-access photo shoots—and which ones will stick with good old fashioned website photos.
What do you think of this newfangled technology? Is this something you would use to inspect a hotel before staying there? Let us know in the comments below!
[Photo: Google, obviously]
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