Help users discover more with new Places API updates

The Places API provides you with business information, ratings, reviews and more for over 200 million businesses and places around the world. Starting today, we’re starting to roll out more attributes that reflect some of the most highly-requested information about places. These Place details and attributes play an important role in keeping existing customers informed, but also in helping convert customers from conducting a simple search to making an in-person visit. 

Display wheelchair accessible entrances

The Places API now includes wheelchair accessibility data, so your apps and websites can help users know if a destination has stair-free access and entrances that are at least three feet (one meter) wide. That’s helpful for the nearly 1-in-6 people with mobility challenges, and helps anyone with a stroller, luggage, delivery cart, or other need that might require a ramp.  

Wheelchair accessible entrance is a field available in the Basic category of Places API that is included in the base cost of Places requests at no additional charge.

Display special and secondary opening hours

Businesses sometimes adjust their opening hours for holidays or other reasons. Or they may have specific hours for different services at the same location–such as a drive-through that is open longer than the dining room, or a pharmacy that closes earlier than the retail store. Now, in addition to displaying regular open hours, you can account for schedule variations with these new parameters:

opening_hours provide regular hours of operation

current_opening_hours provide the place’s schedule for the next 7 days, including a sub-field “special days” to let you know if that day’s schedule is different from the place’s regular schedule. This makes it clear to customers that the special hours are accurate.

secondary_opening_hours provides the place’s secondary schedule for the next 7 days, and is structured similarly to the “current opening hours” field.

Place opening hours, including special hours and secondary opening hours are fields available in the Contact category in Places API. 

Display a short business description

The editorial summary is a one-line description that Google created to describe a place on Google Maps. Based on your feedback, we are making it available through the Places API. Now, you can display the same short summary about places in your apps and in your preferred language.

Editorial summary is available in the Atmosphere category in Places API.

Share relevant attributes about dining and shopping services

Helping your users choose a restaurant requires sharing quite a bit of information. Does a restaurant or shop offer take-out? Does it take reservations? Does it serve brunch? And so on. With the new available data fields for dining and shopping services, you’ll be able to provide more of the details your users need to make a decision:

curbside_pickup

delivery

dine_in

takeout

reservable

serves_breakfast

serves_lunch

serves_dinner 

serves_beer

serves_wine 

serves_brunch

serves_vegetarian_food

Restaurant and shopping attributes are available in the Atmosphere category in Places API.

Sort reviews in your preferred language

The Places API can provide user-written reviews about a place. Previously, developers couldn’t choose which reviews would get returned. Now, you can request the most relevant or most recent reviews using the reviews_sort parameter.  The Places API can also now return translated reviews in the request’s preferred language by default. You can opt out of receiving translations with the reviews_no_translations parameter. 

Review sorting and review translations are available in the Atmosphere category in Places API.

All these new fields are available in the Places API, and are being released in phases across our Places Library, Maps JavaScript API, Places SDK for Android, and Places SDK for iOS. We plan on introducing more attributes to the Places Details API so you can continue giving customers the information they need. And we want to hear from you. Let us know which features you want to see by requesting it here.

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.