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Google Glass has been released into the wild - at least for those dropping $1,500 - and app developers are beginning to take the emerging platform a bit more seriously. Spanish OTA Destinia has created "Hotel Near Me," which allows Glass users to search for hotels, and then ultimately book one of the 200,000 hotels on the site.
The limited screen real estate means that the browsing experience is limited to features and photos, and then once a hotel is booked, the user can follow directions to the hotel.
The company created the following video, and despite the fact that this woman looks a bit daft standing there talking to herself on the side of a busy street in Madrid, the utility could be useful for last-minute bookers.
In the announcement, Destinia CEO Amuda Goueli is bullish on augmented reality options in travel:
Technology is revolutionizing tourism, making the traveler's day-to-day life easier and easier. Companies like ours must always be on the cutting edge, anticipating our clients' needs. We are working to perfect the augmented reality, which allows users to find hotels in their immediate vicinity. And in the future, this application will have many more features.
The app's name highlights how geo-location is important - i.e. just showing hotels nearby - however, the key to success will be personalization according to past preferences. This is especially important to avoid the information overload that comes from endless hotel selection, and allows Destinia to enhance loyalty opportunities by remembering specific data about customers.
The app was created in collaboration with Glob3Mobile, and is currently pending approval by Google.