-
Website
http://avc.com/ -
Original page
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/10/two-new-ways-to-find-a-better-place-to-stay-on-the-road-1.html -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
All Comments
i'm on my way
although RealTravel is interesting too.
There are also travel agents that specialize in the entertainment industry. One phone call can solve booking a decent hotel in even the most far-flung corners of the world.
one of the turn off, when browsing through hotels, is to find out that the hotel you selected is not available during the booking process (it append to me many times in various websites). I am not sure if the api provided by your transaction partners allows you to do that, but, asking the location and travel date first, and only display hotels that are available helps a lot users. Beside, great website.
The travel booking web services market does need some consolidation and innovation indeed. As if they've stagnated since 2002. The only possible exception is Kayak which is a good aggregator. It's good to see something fresh like Oyster and Hunch- I'm on it now.
Oyster had more selection and you can dig deeper about the destination, but something is getting lost during the hand-off to transaction sites: the hotel rates aren't jiving with what Oyster listed, and that's a big let-down when for e.g. it shows you it's available for $200, then you go the transaction side, and the lowest rate is $420.
I think both have potential to continue evolving over time. Perhaps we're seeing 2 sides of this: 1) sites where you do research/discovery and 2) those that take the transaction. At this point, the traditional sites (Travelocity/Expedia/Hotels/Priceline) are great for transaction but weak on rich discovery, whereas the new breed (Hunch/Oyster/ others?) are great on discovery but need to strengthen their transaction end-points. That's why the hand-off / integration between both is so critical.
thanks a lot
sites that refer to transaction sites. It seems that the integration
data points are not in sync in real time
I ended-up booking via Expedia- they presented me an offer I couldn't refuse (flight+hotel combo at -$400 off regular & a very decent hotel exactly where I wanted to be)
My only comment for a site like Oyster is to re-tighten the integration with the transaction back-ends. Don't make it look like you're throwing me over the wall and see how it lands- rather pull the real-time prices and let me advance my decision-making while I'm still at Oyster, rather than when I leave it to go to Expedia or Travelocity because their transaction-ready richness somehow trumps it right now.
You can check this one as well: http://www.airbnb.com/.
I use tripadvisor.com for the selection and hotels.com or latestays.com (works well in Asia) for the booking.
I like reading revues, especially the negative one, from other users. What tripadvisor could improve is to add the possibility for users to add pictures or videos to their reviews.
Oyster is well done, and i am sure, suggests good hotels, but, i agree with you it will require time and money (a slow money investment?) to cover most destinations and have enough users reviews (still like to read what peer travelers are saying).
Hunch is more a decision making tool that can serve for any topic and not only hotels. It is kind of fun to answers the questions, but, the decisions process is a bit too "school like". A way to improve it would be to add more graphics and making multiple choice suggestions after each question is answered. The website need to me more intuitive and focus more on the answers and less on the questions. Only my 2 cents..
You start with a quote as to the long-term viability of (investing in) web-services, yet you then mention that your habits have changed over just a few years - from Trip Advisor/Google to Oyster/Hunch - and in the comments you even suggest Facebook/Twitter to ask for recommendations.
Maybe I didn't understand your use of the quote, but it seems a little disjointed to me.
I was still thinking along the lines of 'slow-capital.'
(For the record, I'm a big fan of Chris' work and Hunch)
The reason is as follows. It gives me decent answers, sometimes not so decent. I then go into the lists (because ti shows me the lists) to see if it all matches up, or if I want to explore some more options (I'm totally serious about this, I've been keeping the Hunch list of blogs open for days now to make over my list of blogs I read in my RSS feed)
This leads me to feeling very confused about how paternalistic or libertarianism Hunch is a UGC website. I even once, on a really moody day and also just to see if it was there, to see if I could get relationship advice. Yes, there was a decision tree for "Should I ask that guy out?" Contrary to Hunch, the real answer is NO!
It's great for all sort of offhand, less emotionally sticky content. Yet I was that girl who asked Dr. Fake, (who is awesome) @ the New York Tech Meetup if Hunch had any way to get people over the emotions of making decisions. And she essentially said no. Which is why I will forever keep coming back, but I'll forver stay away from
:
http://www.hunch.com/am-i-over-my-ex/
Just too weird. Too many potential paternalistic or libertarian overtones that get me way too curious.
• A 2008 study conducted by Expedia Corporate Travel of more than 1,100 U.S. business travelers found that 55% take time “to relax in their off hours, like using the facilities of health-conscious hotels, such as in-room workouts, healthy offerings in the mini-bar and on-site gyms to stay fit while on the road.”
• In 2006 Coyle Hospitality Group found that more than half of respondents said they were likely or very likely to use a hotel’s fitness facility and that new equipment was important.
• More than half (51%) of business travelers exercise during their trips (Marriott, 2002).
• Almost 7 out of 10 (69%) hotel guests favor an accommodation with a good gym. Yet, 55% have decided not to use a hotel workout room because it was in such bad condition (Lieberman Research Worldwide, 2003).
But that said, its not the number one thing I look for
My anecdotal research is that I have stayed in a lot of hotels over the past 3 years and I've been to the gym in all of them; the gyms are almost always empty. I think that what may be going on here is that when you ask people if the gym is important to them, they know they are supposed to say that it is because it's something that smart people like. It's the problem with a lot of research - asking people what they want is far less useful than observing what they actually do in practice.
+ I think Hunch is interesting due to the social element.
+ I am not sure about Oyster, do you like the product & the biz model or just the product? I don't understand the biz model; cost is too high.
+ Also check out www.raveable.com; interesting concept
Anand
Interesting para on the 'about' page, clever appeal for folks to give it a chance:
"We think that you will love Hunch. It may not be awesome yet -- a lot of people have to contribute to it before it knows much of anything. But it will be awesome later. Love it anyway. Love it now."
The more places I check out the more informed my decision will be as to what hotel I choose to stay at. I usually spend about 30 minutes of effort doing research and I have been successful in the last 20 different hotels I have stayed in.
For the Tides hotel in Miami we agree that the rooms are nice http://www.raveable.com/fl/miami-beach/the-tide... but also noisy. One advantage we have over other travel sites is that our ratings are based on the widest and most up-to-date set of opinions.
For a trip to South Beach Miami we would recommend the Anglers or newly remodeled Betsy hotel. You can see our full list here http://www.raveable.com/fl/miami-beach/best-hot...
I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have