example hotel search. click to embiggen
Today has been a pretty good day for the hotel business in China. First we saw e-commerce giant 360Buy launch its own hotel booking service at hotel.360buy.com. And we’re just hearing from the Baidu Beat blog that Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) has added some extra hotel search functions to its map service (at ditu.baidu.com). And just in time for Valentine’s Day too!
Featured in its ‘vicinity search ’ function, users can click on the Chinese characters for hotel, and browse what’s available in your given area. There are also options to drill down by criteria like the type of hotel or star rating, by price, or reviews. Users can usually see hotel links provided for given hotels on Baidu’s partner sites (like Qunar, Ctrip, Daodao, or Kuxun).
Also listed as a ‘new’ feature in this vicinity search that I’ve not seen before is a restaurant search function which works in a similar manner, with options to filter by type of food or by cost. Perhaps my favorite aspect of vicinity search (which is probably old, but new to me) is the ability to search nearby function, which brings up things like ATMs or banks that might be nearby.
Readers may remember that Baidu also added an indoor maps feature not so long ago as well, which allows users explore large buildings like shopping malls in many of China’s major cities.
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