Booking holidays
Mar. 31st, 2007 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatSorry. I've been quite ranty this week, and also quite talkative. But here goes...
Why do so many hotels (and pubs and eating places) still not bother to have a website? Do they want people to use them?
Why is it so hard to find a hotel's own website (when it has one), rather than its entry in a million and one different hotel booking services?
Why does every one of those million and one website booking services give contradictory information regarding price and availability?
Why do the websites lie to you, claiming that they have vacancies, then ten minutes later denying it utterly? Then, if you sternly interrogate it a third time, it will cave in and admit that, actually, yes, they can fit you in after all. Do these websites have a split personality? Are they just mischievous trouble-makers? Is it all a test, so they make sure they only get persistent guests who really, really want to be there? Do they laugh to see us tear out our hair? Is it all a plot by the travel agents, to make us all give up booking our own holidays online, and rush tearfully back to them, saying, "you were right. We do need your professional expertise, after all?"
Why do so many websites not even allow you to make an enquiry by email, but insist on phone calls?
Why do so many online forms go out of their way to torment you - e.g. by resetting everything to "January" if you lower your guard for just one second, or by automatically filling in "22nd July" for your check-out date, just because you've put "21st June" for your check-in, so you half glance at it, see the "22nd Ju.." think "that's right," and then get sternly told that you can't stay for more than a month so please go away. Um... I think lost a question mark somewhere in the mire of verbosity, so here it is. "?"
After four man hours of work last night we managed to book 5 out of the 9 nights, a flight, and a car. We then retreated, battered and bruised. The battle will be rejoined today.
I should also note that this was the first Friday night in aeons that we didn't have anything to drink. I feel quite proud of myself, though I'm aware that this fact makes me seen very bad.
Today we need to tidy the house and make it fit for polite company next weekend. Not that we're getting any... ;-)
Why do so many hotels (and pubs and eating places) still not bother to have a website? Do they want people to use them?
Why is it so hard to find a hotel's own website (when it has one), rather than its entry in a million and one different hotel booking services?
Why does every one of those million and one website booking services give contradictory information regarding price and availability?
Why do the websites lie to you, claiming that they have vacancies, then ten minutes later denying it utterly? Then, if you sternly interrogate it a third time, it will cave in and admit that, actually, yes, they can fit you in after all. Do these websites have a split personality? Are they just mischievous trouble-makers? Is it all a test, so they make sure they only get persistent guests who really, really want to be there? Do they laugh to see us tear out our hair? Is it all a plot by the travel agents, to make us all give up booking our own holidays online, and rush tearfully back to them, saying, "you were right. We do need your professional expertise, after all?"
Why do so many websites not even allow you to make an enquiry by email, but insist on phone calls?
Why do so many online forms go out of their way to torment you - e.g. by resetting everything to "January" if you lower your guard for just one second, or by automatically filling in "22nd July" for your check-out date, just because you've put "21st June" for your check-in, so you half glance at it, see the "22nd Ju.." think "that's right," and then get sternly told that you can't stay for more than a month so please go away. Um... I think lost a question mark somewhere in the mire of verbosity, so here it is. "?"
After four man hours of work last night we managed to book 5 out of the 9 nights, a flight, and a car. We then retreated, battered and bruised. The battle will be rejoined today.
I should also note that this was the first Friday night in aeons that we didn't have anything to drink. I feel quite proud of myself, though I'm aware that this fact makes me seen very bad.
Today we need to tidy the house and make it fit for polite company next weekend. Not that we're getting any... ;-)
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 09:26 am (UTC)And now I should be tidying the house for my parents, who probably do count as "polite company", and who will be here in just over two hours!
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Date: 2007-03-31 09:55 am (UTC)Fortunately for me, my parents don't count too much as "polite company." My Mum's attitude is summed up by the cross-stitch sampler she has on display, that reads, "Dull women have immaculate houses."
I don't want to start tidying until Pellinor is up, and he's still fast asleep, so oh no, poor me, I'm forced to waste more time on the computer.
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Date: 2007-03-31 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 10:15 am (UTC)*off a-tidying*
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Date: 2007-03-31 10:43 am (UTC)A) You know who to recommend.
"Why is it so hard to find a hotel's own website (when it has one), rather than its entry in a million and one different hotel booking services?"
B) Bad search engine optimisation. See A) above.
"Why does every one of those million and one website booking services give contradictory information regarding price and availability?"
C) They need an easily updateable website so that they can manage it themselves. See A) above.
"Why do the websites lie to you, claiming that they have vacancies, then ten minutes later denying it utterly? Then, if you sternly interrogate it a third time, it will cave in and admit that, actually, yes, they can fit you in after all. Do these websites have a split personality? Are they just mischievous trouble-makers? Is it all a test, so they make sure they only get persistent guests who really, really want to be there? Do they laugh to see us tear out our hair? Is it all a plot by the travel agents, to make us all give up booking our own holidays online, and rush tearfully back to them, saying, "you were right. We do need your professional expertise, after all?"
D) See A) and C) above.
"Why do so many websites not even allow you to make an enquiry by email, but insist on phone calls?"
E) Possibly because the hotel doesn't have a decent email solution. See A) above.
"Why do so many online forms go out of their way to torment you - e.g. by resetting everything to "January" if you lower your guard for just one second, or by automatically filling in "22nd July" for your check-out date, just because you've put "21st June" for your check-in, so you half glance at it, see the "22nd Ju.." think "that's right," and then get sternly told that you can't stay for more than a month so please go away."
F) Because they're badly written. See A) above.
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Date: 2007-03-31 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-01 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-01 06:30 pm (UTC)a) Because many people who run hotels and pubs, particularly small independent ones, are not themselves very computer-literate, and often not terribly good at marketing. This means that when they did venture into getting their own website, usually about 2003, they got their fingers burned.
This is really sad. I absolutely hate it when someone calls me about a website that they've already spent all they can afford on, and I have to say 'well, sorry, but whoever built this has overcharged you, misadvised you, and done a really poor job, in that the site is broken in X, Y & Z ways'. This is becoming slightly less common, but still happens depressingly often.
b) while philmophlegm makes a fine point, it's also Google's fault. Google likes large, well-linked websites and lists them much more favorably than small ones. It's much much easier for a big accommodation agency to rank well for a search than for a single hotel or restaurant to do so, when it comes to generic searches like 'hotels in Aberdeen'.
c)& d) All the million and one booking services have to relate their availability data to one place: usually, the booking database held by the hotel itself. No matter how good the hotel database is, it's unlikely to be able to support sending a constant stream of availability data to all the possible sources constantly, and no matter how good the booking engine website is, it's unlikely to be able to talk to all its hotels every hour on the hour.
When the booking engine is relating to something like restaurant room bookings or holiday cottages, it may not even be talking to a 'definitive' database that is online. It may well be a written diary or something, and someone from the booking site phones up once a week and gets a verbal status update.
Because of this, things get out of sync. You will find this also happens with price comparison sites such as Froogle, but it doesn't seem quite so annoying there for some reason.
e) 100% agree, with the note that this is often an organisational rather than a strictly technical problem.
f) yes, I'm afraid so. Often because someone was trying to be clever, or didn't test cross-browser.
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Date: 2007-03-31 02:30 pm (UTC):-p
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Date: 2007-04-03 03:10 pm (UTC)I _never_ use hotel's own websites except for information purposes if I really have to. I book all my other hotels (UK and overseas) via Expedia.