New Google test shows hotel reviews grouped by traveler type & categories

Google is now testing a new method of displaying local reviews for the hotel industry by grouping and summarizing reviews by traveler type and category of service. Sergey Alakov first noticed this test, and he captured many screen shots of the Google local reviews test.

I’ll summarize the big changes that I think really stand out.

Google local reviews are broken out here by traveler type, including couples, families, solo and business travelers. Here is a screen shot showing the reviews summary grouped by those types:

If you click into one, it will then show you the summary by category of service, such as rooms, location and service and facilities. This is all with a graphical user interface that has nice imagery and icons:

In addition, at the top level, you can also summarize by categories including rooms, location and service and facilities:

Google shows you the top reviews in each category as well:

Sergey has more screen shots on his blog, but this is one of the more extreme user interface tests I’ve seen in local in a while.