Hotels Band to Offer Their Own Search Site January 22, 2012, 10:00 am Six of the world's largest hotel companies have collaborated to create a Web site that allows travelers to search listings and then book rooms directly on hotel sites, effectively cutting out middlemen like Expedia. The site, Roomkey.com, is owned by Choice Hotels International; Hilton Worldwide; Hyatt Hotels Corporation; InterContinentalHotels Group; Marriott International; and Wyndham Hotel Group, part of the Wyndham Worldwide Corporation. The companies own more than 50 hotel brands. The site will also include results from other hotels as well. Best Western International was the first commercial partner to sign up since the site's introduction last week. Roomkey, or at least its beta testing site, offers a clean search page, employing adjustable graphics to filter searches by priority: price range, star rating, distance and so on. "There's not a lot of clutter," Stephany Verstraete, Room Key's chief marketing officer, said. Our goal is really only to present the relevant information someone needs to make a purchase. So you'll see there's not a barrage of online advertising. There's not a lot of distractions. From the search results, users are one click from viewing photographs of the hotel, its amenities and a Google map of its location. One more click takes users directly to the hotel's Web site for booking. Ms. Verstraete said that for now the site's main focus is building more commercial partners, but enhanced functions, like the ability to post user reviews, are in the near future.