So, with all of the fun and community-inspired content of Wikipedia, I thought I would try something here: Imagine a little bit of TripAdvisor and Travelpost, mixed with Zagat’s and HotelChatter, and all jumbled up through a wiki tool. Except that I don’t have a wiki tool implemented yet so I’m going to try it through a blog posting.
Having been in the online travel industry for more than 8 years now, having started with Preview Travel, then Travelocity, and now Perfect Escapes, I’ve watched the maturation of the online space over the years. And as more people came online, broadband went mainstream, and then Web 2.0 exploded, one of the pieces that has continued to fall by the wayside have been actual hotel descriptions.
Granted, every travel site out there has a Reviews section. You have Expedia, Travelocity, TripAdvisor. Then you also have Travelpost, Igougo, Yahoo Answers. You have the Guide Books and their user reviews, like Fodor’s, Frommer’s, and Rough Guides.
But what if…what if there was a wikipedia for Hotel descriptions. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of reading the same old descriptions of hotels on most sites. User Reviews are fine but they tend to be too subjective and really depend on who the person is, what their experience was like, and how they like to travel.
But what if you could find hotel descriptions that were more like a Zagat’s review - little bits and pieces from various people molded into one description that was not marketing fluff but actually really useful and easily updated? I think that would be the extremely helpful with my decision-making.
So, here is the experiment. I’ve placed a Hotel Description below taken from our site, Perfect Escapes. This is the description for the Four Seasons in New York City:
“Rising over Manhattan’s premier shopping and business district, between Park and Madison Avenues, the I.M. Pei-designed Four Seasons features stunning views and gracious style – a remarkable luxury experience, even by New York standards.” (from Perfect Escapes)
You can see all the comments below but I’ve incorporated them into the updated review, below:
Rising over Manhattan’s premier shopping and business district, between Park and Madison Avenues, the I.M. Pei-designed Four Seasons features stunning views and gracious style – a remarkable luxury experience, even by New York standards. The Grill Room may be the home to the original “Power Lunch” but L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon at The Four Seasons Hotel on 57th Street is a worthy competitor.
The bar is filled with magazine and media execs and the social elite, sipping on flowery pinot noir and dirty martinis at happy hour, along with silicone-filled, botox-injected, divorced women seeking someone who’s got a chunk of change to support the “lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed,” and middle-aged men inappropriately liaising with impressionable girls. It’s much better then reality TV, because it’s NYC reality.
Tip: Be sure to ask any available staff what the “Four Seasons” are. It’s sure to get a laugh from all but the most serious of employees!
Post a comment to this entry if you have stayed at the hotel and have something worthwhile to share with others. I’ll be making continuous edits to the listing, incorporating your comments (if they are applicable and don’t involve trying to sell me Viagra). If you are from the hotel or from another hotel in New York, don’t send me information to sabotage it or market it. I’ll know.
What I do want:
What was the pool like?
The restaurant?
The bar?
Did you like your bedsheets?
What about the service of the hotel?
Did they know your name when you walked around?
Know anything about the history of the hotel?
How about the architecture, or where they get their lobby artwork from?
Some feature that only you are obsessed by in hotels?
Keep checking back and eventually, maybe we’ll be able to use these kind of postings on the Perfect Escapes site. For now, they will reside here but I’m curious to see how helpful a community can be.
