Lack of hotel details on holiday booking sites
By Darren Cronian on Monday, April 7th, 2008

I was impressed when searching on ebookers for a hotel for my trip to Sardinia. There was a note on one hotel listing informing me that the hotel is popular with Italian students during the high season, so the hotel isn’t recommended to those who are looking for a peaceful relaxing holiday.

Lack of hotel details on holiday booking sites

That was the exception though when looking on other holiday and hotel booking websites – very few provided information on building work, if the hotel was located up an hill, no mention what type of clientele usually visit the hotel.

Worse still was that there was very little guidance to help those with a disability, i.e. is the hotel wheelchair friendly. Some of the sites had awful photographs of the hotel, a line of description and one of them horrible mapquest maps, which are unreadable.

I realise companies can only provide the information received from the hotel, but the quality needs be improved in my opinion. One of my biggest gripes about online, and to some extent brochures is the lack of photos or old photos which misguide you in thinking that the hotel is nicer than it really is.

Have you stayed in a hotel that’s looked different than that described on the website or brochure?


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10 responses to “Lack of hotel details on holiday booking sites”

Simon | 8 April, 2008 at 2:29 pm

It is indeed a problem, and keeping it up to date is also a big issue requiring a lot of resource. This is exactly the reason why I always use TripAdvisor as it has reviews, users content (including pictures of problems) and provides a much better insight into the accommodation.

People trying to sell holidays will always pretty it up!!!

Jason McIntyre | 8 April, 2008 at 11:32 pm

Well, funny you should mention this Darren.

We booked a holiday with Olympus holidays and found the hotel photographs were that of another hotel nearby, but not of the actual accommodation we were staying in.

The pool and pool bar was closed, so it certainly didn’t like those photos in the holiday brochure.

Darren Cronian | 9 April, 2008 at 12:46 am

@ Jason

That’s not the first time I have heard that happen. You’ll probably find that the hotel belongs to the owner of the hotel you stayed in and they took a pic of the nicest one.

Its naughty and I hope you reported this to the company as the same happened to me last year in Crete with the same company.

Darren Cronian | 9 April, 2008 at 12:48 am

@ Simon

True about prettying up, but surely there’s some law there somewhere (trade description act?) which says that hotels or companies cant get away with that type of tactic?

Simon | 9 April, 2008 at 9:26 am

Yes there will be to an extent. Jason’s example is a big no-no, a lesser example might be a villa being painted Yellow instead of White shown in the pictures.

I’m not defending it at all, but it’s very difficult to keep the content up to date. We update our content monthly, or sooner if it has legal implications. We also rely on customer feedback, so that if there was a problem we can go back to the hotelier and find out what’s changed and why they haven’t told us!

nozio.com | 9 April, 2008 at 9:38 am

Confirms the fact that user generated feedback is important, to verify that the photos published online are a real representation of the hotel.

Mark Sukhija | 9 April, 2008 at 9:49 am

Part of the problem isn’t just whether legislation exists or not but what jurisdiction it is applicable in.

The internet being what it is, it is possible to book online with firms on the other side of the Atlantic/world and alternative laws/jurisdictions may apply to your agreement with the firm.

This adds a degree of complexity which most can’t/can’t be bothered to deal with.

Darren Cronian | 9 April, 2008 at 1:29 pm

@ Simon

I can imagine it to be a massive task for any sized travel company. What would install a bit of confidence for me would be a stamp on the hotel listing saying when it was last updated.

@ Nozio

It does indeed! I was reading an article the other week which said that user generated content is dead and people are relying more on experts.

I completely disagreed with that statement.

@ Mark

Good points.

Laws in one country is different than an other. Look at the horrible incident with Thomas Cook and the young children who died due to carbon monoxide poisoning - was that in Cyprus or a Greek Island, can’t remember.

Great discussion :)

Nathan Midgley | 9 April, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Hi Darren - sorry I haven’t been round these parts in a while…

“I realise companies can only provide the information received from the hotel…”

Yes, if they produce all their content in-house - but in we’re already seeing operators/retailers add user reviews, or license reviews from e.g. tripadvisor (which is in some ways preferable as it guarantees a decent volume of content).

Hayes and Jarvis told Travel Weekly its sales increased after it integrated tripadvisor reviews, and First Choice has plans to add them this year.

Ultimately I think most people who travel online have already learned to going to several different places to build up a complete picture of what they’re booking - in a way that is as it should be. But it is in travel websites’ interests to do some of that aggregation work for their users, if only because it encourages them not to break the research > sale momentum.

Of course, then you have to worry about how detailed and accurate user review are… ;)

Michelle | 9 April, 2008 at 7:59 pm

I’ve definitely had some bad hotel surprises in the past. However, for my past few trips, I used Tripadvisor before I booked. The user photos are extremely helpful and can often be very different from the hotel’s official photos. Also, there are 2 relatively new sites, TVtrip and Trivop, which post video of hotel rooms and the surrounding neighborhood.

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