New Delhi, Aug 14 (IANS): As some countries begin to reopen their businesses, Google has announced two new updates in its Search to help people travel safely and with confidence.

One of the updates is informing people about more hotels with free cancellation policies at their destinations.

Many hotels and vacation rentals are now offering free cancellation to give travellers more confidence when planning trips.

"Search for a hotel, and later this month a vacation rental, on google.com/travel and filter to see only rooms or properties with free cancellation policies," the company said in a statement.

In the next week, people will see the percentage of open hotels with availability and flights operating at the city or county-level, based on Google Flights and Hotels data from the previous week.

Because the impact of Covid-19 on destinations can vary, it's important to stay up to date on the latest travel-related information.

"We recently introduced driving alerts to notify you about Covid-19 checkpoints and restrictions along your route in Google Maps," the tech giant said.

When people visit google.com/travel and tap on a trip they are planning or search for hotels and things to do, they will now see trendlines for hotel and flight availability.

"Links to additional local resources, including the number of COVID-19 cases, are provided as well"