They’ve done it again! Add some new entries to the list of categories available to local guides when adding or editing POIs, I mean. Similar to the previous times, end of 2018 and early 2019 (am I picking up a once-per-quarter cadence here?), there are a number of new restaurant categories, although the peculiar thing this time is that all of them seem to be focusing on the Indian market:
- Indian sizzler restaurant
- Modern Indian restaurant
- North Eastern Indian restaurant
- Parsi restaurant
But there are 2 other new categories that I find VERY interesting, not because of the categories as such, but rather by the nature of the categories: “traditionally” POI categories were clearly linkable to a specific business (bakery, ad agency, bank, etc.) or building (church, school, etc.) and POIs needed to have a well-defined address (or at least street) and specific name (preferably written on the storefront or on a sign nearby). Some relatively recently added categories were already moving away from that name-is-needed condition, like e.g. Electrical Vehicle Charging Station (some of those belong to a branded chain and can therefore get the brand as name, but others are provided by local authorities or local businesses and have no branding or name sign - but you can still add a street as address for them).
Now, however, two brand new categories have been added that typically have no name or brand AND are usually in places where there are no street names to add them to: Animal watering hole (available in all languages I checked) and Camping Cabin (at the moment only available in English). I hope these are early indications that Google is reconsidering the selection criteria for new places.
A little side-note on (once again) lack of consistency: “Animal watering hole” only has the first word capitalized (as most categories in the US English list), whereas “Camping Cabin” has both words capitalized. Where’s QA when you need them 
?