According to Google’s LatLong blog:
“With this feature, when you search for hotels on Google Maps you’ll be able to enter the dates you plan to stay and see real prices on selected listings. You can click on the price to see a list of advertisers who have provided pricing information for that hotel, indicated by the “Sponsored” text, and click through to reserve a room on the advertiser’s site.”
It’s unclear who the advertisers are for the testing phase, but the blog states “this new feature will not change the way that hotels are ranked in Google Maps.” Google Maps lists and ranks businesses based on their relevance to the search terms entered by the user, along with geographic distance.
Google is testing the new hotel feature with a small number of users. No word on when the search engine will roll out the new feature but if they do, we’ll be first in line to take it for a ride.