Gekko glides down the bookmarking route for hotel search

European hotel website Gekko is launching a Deli.cio.us-style bookmark tool to allow users to aggregate hotel properties when browsing elsewhere on the web.

Working on the principle that users often browse up to 30 hotel sites before selecting one for booking, Gekko has created a button to sit in web browsers so hotel pages on any other site can be tagged and pulled into a single list on its own site.

Gekko has chosen an email-based system, rather than widget option favoured by the likes of Gliider, which does a similar job for overall trip planning.

When a user hits the Save@Gekko button in the browser an email is automatically sent with details of the hotel. A user will then receive a message with a link to a personal page on the Gekko site with a list of all the hotels selected, formatted to include price, facilities, etc.

The system also allows users to then browse through and manipulate the list based on price.

Vice president for strategy and product, Rodrigo Dauster, says one of the problems that other bookmarking tools have found is that sometimes URLs fail within a certain date range and the offer is lost.

The advantage of using the email system is that the Gekko technology can capture the price and effectively lock the information for the user for when they return to their list, Dauster says.

Gekko says the system is also built so that a user does not need to register or become a member – it works simply by using the email address of the sender.