Addressing these concerns is Room 77, a hotel metasearch site that aims to get travellers the exact room they want.

BBC: Say goodbye to hotel room roulette

Kayak.com, the metasearch website, studied more than a billion US domestic airfares available for purchase throughout 2011.

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As of September 2012, Google ranks 7th in visits among metasearch travel sites, with a paltry 1.4% of such visits.

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As a result, some of these industry participants and independent experts fear that the current high level of competition among online travel agents and metasearch providers could be undermined if Google were to acquire ITA and start its own OTA or metasearch service.

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Listing 100, 000 hotels in the US and another 100, 000 worldwide, Room 77 scours dozens of sites (including online travel agencies and individual hotel websites) to nab the most attractive accommodation deal, similar to other metasearch engines such as Google Hotel Finder, HotelsCombined and Kayak.

BBC: Say goodbye to hotel room roulette