Apps are finding more and more ways to fit into our lives and Room 77, a 2-year old start-up, developed an app for the purpose of enriching the travel experience. The novelty behind Room 77 is that it ranks hotel rooms by parsing Google Earth data with latitude, longitude and altitude parameters to simulate actual room views. Through the app, users can look up on hotel offers and info before requesting a room or even on site, at the reception of the hotel.

Room 77 encompasses over 2,500 hotels and 425,000 rooms from North America and the United Kingdom, ranked from three stars upwards. Room 77 receives precise info on room category, square footage, bed type, elevator proximity and room map from hotel, sending out its own employees to double-check the accuracy of the data. Room reviews and info can be consulted via iPhone devices and website.

Last year, Room 77 acquired TripKick, a service rating individual hotel rooms and the operation is of great importance, as mergers of databases will spare Room 77’s efforts and time required for visiting each room. Acquisitions are of great interest at the moment for players in the travel domain. At the beginning of this month we detailed TripAdvisor’s acquisition of EveryTrail to address the mobile niche of the travel market.

Last month, Nileguide acquired 10Best.com and Localyte.com, a move expected to boost Nileguide’s niche development that led to a makeover for Nileguide’s website. Another interesting acquisition news comes from Concure, a travel and expense management solutions provider, that bought TripIt for $120 million, thus narrowing the number of competitors.

Going back to the apps marketplace for the travel industry, during the WMC 2011 event, Route 66 launched two Google-related apps, Route 66 Maps + Navigation app and the Route 66 Drive & Walk app, both with “Follow Me” augmented reality feature, transposing real time view of the road ahead through the device’s built-in camera.