Google Travel Now Shows COVID-Related Health and Safety Precautions

Nov. 11, 2020

Google has been adding new COVID-related features to its products includingSearchandMaps. The software giant has now addedadditional health and safety precautions on hotel and vacation rental listingsto help you make informed decisions during the holiday season. The new health and safety precautions sectionappears on the About tab when you search and view hotels onGoogle Travel,the company’s travel booking service.

Through this section, you can see the precautions property or hotel owners are taking to contain the spread of coronavirus. It includes enhanced cleaning frequency, increased food safety, and more. Google says it is working with hotels and vacation rental providers to add more health and safety information to this section.Image: Google

Google encourages hotel owners to get verified on Google My Business and add health and safety details to their business profile. If you’re a hotel owner, you can find the steps to make these changes fromthis support post.

In the same blog post, Google details its plans to add aTrips tab in Timeline for Mapson Android. With this feature, you can see a summary of your past vacations, information about places you’ve visited, total kilometers traveled, and the modes of travel used in your journeys. You can even share these insights with your friends and family.Image: Google

Meanwhile, the Google Photos team is also working to bring Timeline to thePhotos map viewover the coming weeks. This way, you can keep track of your trips right from your gallery. Map view was first introduced alongside the major Google Photos redesign this July.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.