Ever wish you could easily find which hotels offer free Wi-Fi, before you discover that you are having to pay $19.95 per day at the hotel?  Well Google is well aware of this problem for business travelers and has added a brand new feature to the hotel box that shows up in the Google search results.

Here is how it appears in the search results.

When you click the “more hotel” link, it shows additional hotels, and alongside the “free Wi-Fi” it also shows the hotels that offer free breakfast to guests.

When you click through to the hotel itself, the hotel card has now been updated to show additional amenities for the hotel.

Google shows amenities for the following:

• Free Wi-Fi
• Accessible facilities
• Air-conditioned
• Laundry service
• Business center
• Pets allowed
• Free Breakfast
• Pool
• Child Friendly
• Restaurant
• Gym
• Bar
• Smoke-free
• Free parking
• Airport shuttle
• Kitchen in all rooms
• Hot tub
• Spa

In the hotel card display, they will show a no symbol next to the amenities that are unavailable at that particular hotel.

This change began showing up for me on Wednesday, July 29th.

This change will likely make Google’s hotel search a top choice for many, simply based on the free Wi-Fi feature alone… it made my choice for me when I looked for a hotel that day.

There unfortunately doesn’t seem to have any way to be able to only show hotels with certain amenities.  It would have been a great idea to add either a check box or a drop down selector to enable people to easily find hotels with different amenities, particulary ones that are a bit more unusual, such one that allows pets or when looking for a budget hotel option that still has air conditioning.

Forum discussion at Local Search Forum.