Room 77 helps hotel guests choose exact room

Imagine searching for a hotel room online and being able to select the exact room that you want: king bed, clear view of the city, far from the elevator, with no connecting room. “Room 1286 has just what I’m looking for. I’ll book that one.”

Or imagine browsing a map of the hotel on your mobile phone at check-in while the receptionist offers you a choice of the available rooms. “892? Too close to the elevator. 1347? Twin beds are no good. 533? The view is obstructed by the restaurant across the street…”

Room77 is mapping hotel layouts and asking guests and hotels to submit photos and other information. Then they rank how closely each room matches the requests so that potential bookers can get just what they want.

If you’re really serious about travel, you don’t just want the best hotel, you also want the best hotel room. A newly-launched start-up called Room 77 is focusing on exactly that detail. And this is not just some user-generated review play; among other factors, the company is ranking hotel rooms by parsing Google Earth data with latitude, longitude and altitude parameters to simulate actual room views.

Users can query Room 77 in advance to request a room, and they can also use the company’s iPhone app to make quick decisions about which room to take when offered at the front desk. The company has results for 2,500 three-star and above hotels in North America and the UK, including room category, square footage, bed type and elevator proximity.

See the full article here.

For now Room77 is only collecting data to help people make an informed room request. They do not guarantee that anyone will actually get the room that they want. Still, it’s an intriguing idea and I can definitely see how customers would want to use this technology. I can also see how it could stress out receptionists when guests don’t understand that their booking preferences are only requests and are not guaranteed.

The mobile app sounds like a great tool once you’re in the hotel though.

What do you guys think of this service? If they started mapping your hostel’s room layout and making renderings of the views from your windows would you get involved and give them details or would you be against the idea?

I have seen some hostels that allow guests to book a specific room. If you let guests book their exact room rather than a room category, do you run into problems when everyone wants to be in the “best” rooms? Do you have to move your guests around a lot when they want to extend their stay and someone else has already booked that specific room?