Room 77, the hotel search-by-room site that debuted in February, has added booking and comparison-shopping capabilities along with a free concierge service to its offerings.

Starting today, travelers can use Room 77 to simultaneously shop multiple major online travel agencies (OTAs), compare prices across a variety of room types and book at more than 120,000 hotels worldwide.

The company also enhanced its search pages, adding a useful “fees” link for each hotel that shows users the prices of extras, such as valet parking, self parking, Internet connectivity, cribs and pet fees.

The ability to compare various room types at multiple hotels helps travelers more easily find the best values for their stays. For example, they might see that for $25 a night more, they can get a room with better views in the next higher category. Or, they can determine that a suite at one luxury brand is less than the entry-level room at another nearby luxury property, or compare competing properties for the best deal. Results can be viewed in a list or on a map.

In addition, for three- to five-star properties booked through Room 77, travelers get access to a complimentary Room Concierge, which uses Room 77’s proprietary RoomMatch technology to identify the best rooms for each traveler and works directly with hotels to try to secure them.

“No matter where you book a hotel today, your actual room is still a gamble. Room 77 stacks the odds in the traveler’s favor by combining the power of our room IQ with advanced search technology and unprecedented service to get you the right room at the right hotel for the right price,” said Brad Gerstner, founder of Room 77.

Once a hotel has been selected, the new booking pages list the average nightly rates plus taxes and fees for each room type at the property, along with prices for various room types found at Room 77’s partner sites, some of which include Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, Hotels.com, CheapTickets.com and Booking.com.

Travelers who choose to book through Room 77 get the added benefit of the Room Concierge, on qualifying properties. Here’s how it works (or you can watch the attached video):

On the booking form, before finalizing the reservation, travelers can select both primary and secondary room preference (quiet, views, size, easy access or connecting rooms), then supplement those attributes with personalized requests, such as specific room numbers, floor preference, cribs, distance to elevator or whatever else they think of.

Room 77 uses its RoomMatch technology and other information to identify the best rooms to match those preferences, appends the requests to the bookings sent to the hotels, then follows up to ensure they were received, and works with the hotels secure the best matches and confirm the room assignments.

Within 48 hours prior to arrival, a guest will receive a message with the status of their room request and, when possible, a confirmation of specific room number. Room 77 also sends additional hotel information, including suggested rooms and additional hotel-specific tips to increase their odds of getting a preferred room at check-in if one isn’t confirmed before arrival.

“It’s really a blend of science and service that defines the process,” said Kevin Fliess, general manager and vice president of product at Room 77. “We’ve analyzed over 750,000 individual hotel rooms and know where the good and bad rooms are in the hotel. We then use that technology and data to generate a very specific room request—then do a little follow up (the service).”

According to statistics from a Room 77 survey:

• 75 percent of travelers who book online report that they have been disappointed in their hotel room, often because of view, noise and location.
• 93 percent of travelers who book hotels using online travel sites believe they get an average or worse room in a hotel due to the fact they use these sites.
• In beta testing, more than 90 percent of travelers who have used Room 77′s Room Concierge service report that they were assigned a room that met or exceeded their expectations.

One thing to note: The search results pages show the lowest day rate available for the length of stay for each hotel. A vast majority are dollar rates, however for a few international hotels, the number may represent a figure in a foreign currency, however when you select the property and get to the booking page, the site automatically does the conversion and all sales are currently made in U.S. dollars.

Photo: Room 77

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Hotel apps for mobile devices are so common now that smart phone and tablet users are drowning in a sea of apps put out by hotel groups and travel sites. To cut through the clutter, mobile websites and applications for hotels are now looking to develop apps that stand out in some way.

Foodler

Foodler: It started out as an online service for ordering takeouts, but after the launch of its mobile website, Foodler has now come up with a “virtual room service” concept for hotels.

If a boutique hotel without a restaurant wants to offer room service to guests, they can get a Foodler Web page specially made for the hotel that will help guests uncover cuisines from local restaurants nearby that are open and able to deliver to them.

“With Foodler at your service, we are adding value for local hotels and inns who may not have their own restaurants or kitchens, but still know that quality dining is a huge part of the lodging experience,” says Foodler co-founder John Jannotti. “Our commitment has always been focused on making online ordering easy and fast for our customers, and this new service truly simplifies the process for hotel guests who are unfamiliar with the city and need a comprehensive resource for food delivery.”

The Mirage: Need room service even if you’re not in the room? It happens in Las Vegas, at least it does at The Mirage. Its Vegas Starts Here app allows guests to order room service when they’re still in a taxi, playing poker or relaxing in a poolside cabana, with the items often ready and waiting by the time guests return to their rooms.

MGM Resorts International (formerly MGM Mirage) last year launched several other iPhone apps, including an augmented reality app called Vegas Reality that allows guests to order room service and take a tour of Vegas hotels, restaurants and attractions.

Hotels.com: Earlier this month, Hotels.com organized an “extreme” stunt by athlete and stuntman JT Holmes to show how easily and quickly users of its Smarter App can book a hotel room from almost anywhere, even at the very last minute.

JT Holmes booking hotel room up in the air

JT Holmes jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet and booked a room while hurtling down to earth in a 115 m.p.h. free fall, before landing safely on the Lake Tahoe beach of the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort with a confirmed hotel booking.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith: This Plan and Play app has a bucket-load of extras to help make a romantic boutique hotel stay even more enjoyable. The app comes with a risqué game of truth or dare, a get-out-of-work excuses generator (pick an email template, edit and send), and how-to guides for strip poker, minibar cocktail recipes and more.

Photos – Foodler, Hotels.com

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For the next five weeks, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., will not be a White Plains, New York-based company, or even a U.S. company. Well, sort of.

Sheraton Great Wall

Starwood’s entire top management team, including President & CEO Frits van Paasschen, will be headquartered in Shanghai, China, from June 8 to July 11, 2011.

“Today, we’re a global company that happens to be based in New York,” said van Paasschen. “China’s spectacular transformation is hard to grasp unless experienced firsthand—it’s the proverbial, ‘you can’t really understand a culture until you buy groceries there.’”

Starwood has 70 hotels in China with a pipeline of more than 90 new hotels. They’ll be opening a new hotel in China once every two weeks this year.

It’s not just Starwood either. A couple of months ago in March,  InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) held its board and executive committee meetings in China.

IHG has 150 hotels open in China and another 150 in the pipeline for the next five years. It currently has 52,000 employees in China, with plans to hire an additional 90,000 in the next three to five years. To fulfill this demand, IHG has established 25 “partner academies” in China, which produce thousands of graduates ready to enter the hospitality industry.

The global travel industry’s focus in China has also reversed from offering services for visiting foreigners to locking in Chinese travelers.

“Today, more than 50 percent of our guests in China are Chinese,” says Simon Turner, president of global development for Starwood. “When they travel abroad, the Chinese will stay with the hotel brands they know from home, which underscores the significance of our growing footprint of flagship hotels in China and its halo effect on Starwood’s hotels around the world.”

Marriott International recently signed a distribution agreement with Ctrip, the Chinese travel industry’s 800-pound gorilla. The agreement allows Chinese travelers to book any of Marriott’s 3,500 hotels worldwide.

IHG is going one step further and developing a new upscale, China-centric hotel brand from scratch for the Chinese market. IHG Chairman David Webster says Chinese travelers will grow up with it, helping nurture the same trust and comfort experienced by foreigners when they see a familiar brand like InterContinental upon arrival in China.

This kind of long-term thinking and the massive investments made for the 2008 Olympics and Shanghai World Expo has lead to an overheated hotel industry in China. But it still sounds like a good investment, given the statistics:

- 1.9 billion domestic tourist trips in 2010, and growing fast in 2011 and beyond.
- world’s largest inbound tourist destination by 2015, with an estimated 183 million overnight stays.
- 100 million outbound travelers by 2015.

So far, Steve Wynn is the only U.S. hospitality executive who has publicly and seriously considered moving his company, Wynn Resorts, permanently from Las Vegas to China, because 65 percent of Wynn’s revenue now comes from Macau. But as the Asian markets outstrip local operations in the United States and Europe, enjoying extended Chinese hospitality is an idea that’s going to be considered seriously by a lot of people.

Photo – star5112

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Last Sunday, China banned smoking in most public spaces, including airports, train stations, restaurants—and hotels. Basically, any enclosed public space where people congregate (though offices and factories are oddly exempt), it’s now illegal to light up. The country has about 300 million smokers, and, according to the World Health Organization, more than a million die each year from smoking-related diseases.

Still, the impact of the new law is not expected to be dramatic, given that the government doesn’t plan to penalize violators. According to The Telegraph, the genesis of the ban is the World Health Organization’s reprimand of China for refusing to comply with a global anti-tobacco treaty. There is also broad concern for non-smokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke on a daily basis.

The hotel industry in general is downplaying the news. Almost all hotel properties in major cities offer non-smoking rooms, and many have long restricted lighting up to outdoor or ventilated areas, as smoking in rooms increases cleaning and maintenance costs.

Carlos Chen, director of sales at the Guoman Hotel in Shanghai, says most of his guests are accustomed to the rule. “Even our smoking guests frequently travel to countries where smoking has been banned in public places for several years,” says Chen. “I don’t think the new law in China will impact our business very much.”

Major hotel properties in Thailand, Singapore and Mumbai are implementing smoking bans in anticipation of more restrictive laws in the coming months.

Photo: Ivan Walsh, via Flickr