Our new website - RoomAtlas

[RogerM]

Thanks to all who helped with the browser poll. Our new website RoomAtlas.com is now up and running.

The idea came from our experience of trying to find a hotel online and the frustration in clicking through lots of dropdowns, before finally seeing a list of hotels. But how do you know which to pick? Which is closest to the beach, the shops, or the conference? What do previous guests think? and what's the neighbourhood like?

Until now, you might have searched Expedia.com for hotels, then TripAdvisor for reviews, Google Maps for location, Street View for a walk around the neighbourhood, and Wikipedia to find out more about the surroundings. But who has time and patience for that? Room Atlas.com integrates all those sites, to make choosing a hotel quicker, easier and more fun.

We've 50,000 hotels sourced from Expedia and Hotels.com, with live availability information (just enter your dates) and only those hotels with vacancies for your dates and which meet your other screened criteria will be shown on the map, and there's no premium for booking through RoomAtlas. Bookings are handled by Expedia and Hotels.com directly for complete peace of mind.

Anyway, please have a play with it and see what you think!

 

[Chris Knight]

It doesn't really do what it says. Trip advisor comes up with hotels in places that this thing claims have none or very few. I tested it on two places I have stayed recently - Pieve di Cadore and Villefranche.

 

[RogerM]

It doesn't really do what it says. Trip advisor comes up with hotels in places that this thing claims have none or very few. I tested it on two places I have stayed recently - Pieve di Cadore and Villefranche.

Chris - the feed we are using is for Expedia listed hotels. If Expedia doesn't use the hotel then it won't show on the map. Not all hotels are covered by Expedia. When I looked at Villefranche it showed 2 hotels - Mercure Villefranche Beaujolais and Campanile Villefranche Sur Soane - both well rated on Tripadvisor.

Are you saying that when you enter Villefranche it shows no results? Are you perhaps entering dates or other screening details because if there are no vacancies for your dates, or if you have requested a hotel with a swimming pool, then they will not appear as the 2 listed hotels have no pools.

In time we hope to add feeds from other providers to expand the database, but for the time being are keeping it simple and sticking to the 50,000 hotels provided by Expedia.

 

[user 5053]

There are dozens of other sites that do a very similar thing and are much better such as bookings.com. You need to find a gap in the market and preferably something you have background, knowledge and experience in. Sorry to sound harsh but that is what they would say on Dragons Den.

 

[big soft moose]

There are dozens of other sites that do a very similar thing and are much better such as bookings.com. You need to find a gap in the market and preferably something you have background, knowledge and experience in. Sorry to sound harsh but that is what they would say on Dragons Den.

are your opinions based on actual experience in this feild soulfly ? if so i'm sure we'd all love to see your site

or are they based only on your love of putting other people down , whilst never showing any of your own work ?

 

[big soft moose]

without wanting to give credence to trollfly's put downs (we are used to this by now in the turning forum) he does raise a good point that there are a lot of other sites out there providing a similar service.

Now having actually bothered to read your post i appreciate that your USP is that you are map based but if you are only using the expedia hotels, what are the benefits to a potential customer of going through you rather than just going straight to expedia ? and perhaps more importantly how are you going to comunicate those benefits to the market place ?

 

[wizer]

fwiw I really like the concept. Being able to look on the map and pick hotels nearest where I want to be with a strong visual indication of it's price bracket, then a link to a reviews site. Being linked to just expedia and trip advisor is a shame. But as far as the concept, it's fairly unique and the website is easy to use and quick.

I hope you'll take all these comments as constructive (and ignore trollfly).

 

[Mcluma]

Ok

good idea

one simple nag

normally within windows everything is double click, with you its single click - confused me

 

[gidon]

Roger
Well I really like it!
Lovely simple interface. I've not seen anything quite like this personally and would use it. I would spend ages trying to find somewhere near a conference and then check prices and availability.
I do agree that it may need some work to perhaps pull information from other sources. I checked a hotel I stayed in recently in Barcelona and it wasn't there. But these problems are easily fixed I'm sure.
Good luck with it.
Cheers
Gidon

 

[head clansman]

hi

i like the idea , just tried to fine a hotel in almere buiten netherland, it say it has found two showing the first but failed to find on the map the other one ? hc

 

[Russ]

Interesting, but only found restaurants in my area that I would avoid; none of the fine eateries popped-up and there are quite few run by well known chefs....

Maybe it's early days.

Good luck!

 

[Dave S]

Ok

good idea

one simple nag

normally within windows everything is double click, with you its single click - confused me

It's a website. Websites are single-click, always have been.

cheers
Dave

 

[ProShop]

I have to agree with Chris on this, it doesn't really do what it's claiming.
In a location I know very well it lists only one hotel and it's nowhere near it's true location (blame google maps maybe), but log on toTrip advisorand it lists many more hotels in the area :?: :?: Nice idea, but needs a lot more work put into it.

 

[RogerM]

There are dozens of other sites that do a very similar thing and are much better such as bookings.com. You need to find a gap in the market and preferably something you have background, knowledge and experience in. Sorry to sound harsh but that is what they would say on Dragons Den.

Thank you for your objectivity Soulfly but Bookings.com does nothing like RoomAtlas. No interactive map, no prices marked on each hotel, no tripadvisor reviews, and it takes an age to get to the info you want. Also you make big and erroneous assumptions about our background knowledge. However, I do confess to having no experience in woodturning so perhaps I should never try.

Now having actually bothered to read your post i appreciate that your USP is that you are map based but if you are only using the expedia hotels, what are the benefits to a potential customer of going through you rather than just going straight to expedia ? and perhaps more importantly how are you going to comunicate those benefits to the market place ?

Yes, we are using the interactive map as our USP, and initially for both financial and technical reasons we are basing it on Expedia, who also own tripadvisor and hotels.com. You could of course go directly to Expedia, in which case you'll have to navigate separately between their site, tripadvisor, wikipaedia, maps and streetview. Alternatively you can go to RoomAtlas and have access to all that for the full Expedia and Hotels.com database through an interactive map. Some people relate to lists and some to maps. It's just a matter of personal preference.

We have a detailed marketing plan, but cut us some slack please. This has only been live for 24 hours. We are actually very pleased with the hit rate, and have already taken some bookings which was not expected on our opening day.

Being linked to just expedia and trip advisor is a shame. But as far as the concept, it's fairly unique and the website is easy to use and quick.

Thanks Wizer. Based on our initial learning exercise we may be able to add additional feeds at a later stage. But for the time being Expedia is a sufficiently big player to focus on. There will be stock held by Next or BHS or Primark that won't be stocked at M&S, but that doesn't stop people shopping at M&S, and for those that don't, the market is big enough for several players. Expedia have 50,000 hotels listed giving a total of about 500,000 room/nights per day. We'll settle very happily for 1/100th of 1% of that market i.e 1 room in 10,000.

normally within windows everything is double click, with you its single click - confused me

This was a knotty one Mcluma. We actually tried just hovering the mouse over a hotel on the map initially, but it became too confusing in areas of high hotel density. And double clicks are too cumbersome, so settled on single click.

Interesting, but only found restaurants in my area that I would avoid; none of the fine eateries popped-up and there are quite few run by well known chefs....

Maybe it's early days.

Good luck!

But presumably if you know of fine eateries in your area you wouldn't be trying to book them through a hotel booking website.

The idea here is to find hotels in places you intend to visit and which you don't know about. If you know of a fine hotel and it's where you want it to be, case solved - you don't need us. But if you fancy a weekend in Paris and know that you want to find a hotel for around £120 a night on or near the Rue de Rivoli, I can think of no easier way. This is likely to be mass market, and many hotels will be listed not only by Expedia, but also ebookers, Opodo, etc. And some will be exclusive to Expedia or Venere, but I don't think this matters. Many will find what they want from Expedia, either directly or through the map, and we aim to do business with those people. And some will move on to other sources in exactly the same way as some walk away from M&S without buying anything and find what they want in Next. There is room for both.

Time will tell whether it will be financially rewarding, but we've had a lot of fun putting this together, we've learned a lot and it's cost us very little. Anything extra is a bonus. :lol: :lol:

 

[AndyT]

I like it.

Very clear presentation in a city like London of where the areas of similar cheap hotels are / where all the hotels are hundreds of pounds a night.

One little suggestion - when you click through to read Tripadvisor reviews, you only get the most recent handful - I could not see a way to "show all reviews" which I wanted to do.

Andy

 

[bugbear]

Ok

good idea

one simple nag

normally within windows everything is double click, with you its single click - confused me

web is single click, windows included.

Even the submit button you used to post with!

BugBear

 

[Chris Knight]

Roger,

OK, I get it. I hadn't appreciated it was limited by Expedia. What I meant about Villefranche was that only 2 hotels showed up (as you say) whilst there are lots more and in Pieve, none showed up whereas TripAdvisor has several.

Chris - the feed we are using is for Expedia listed hotels. If Expedia doesn't use the hotel then it won't show on the map. Not all hotels are covered by Expedia. When I looked at Villefranche it showed 2 hotels - Mercure Villefranche Beaujolais and Campanile Villefranche Sur Soane - both well rated on Tripadvisor.

Are you saying that when you enter Villefranche it shows no results? Are you perhaps entering dates or other screening details because if there are no vacancies for your dates, or if you have requested a hotel with a swimming pool, then they will not appear as the 2 listed hotels have no pools.

 

[RogerM]

I like it.

Very clear presentation in a city like London of where the areas of similar cheap hotels are / where all the hotels are hundreds of pounds a night.

One little suggestion - when you click through to read Tripadvisor reviews, you only get the most recent handful - I could not see a way to "show all reviews" which I wanted to do.

Andy

Thanks Andy - this is a limitation of the terms of the tripadvisor feed. We just have access to the most recent 5 reviews. Ideally we'd have more, but I think the 5 most recent are of more value than, say, 10 reviews from a year ago.

Roger,

OK, I get it. I hadn't appreciated it was limited by Expedia. What I meant about Villefranche was that only 2 hotels showed up (as you say) whilst there are lots more and in Pieve, none showed up whereas TripAdvisor has several.

Chris - it's limited to Expedia for both practical and financial reasons for the time being. Maybe possible to add other providers in future, but we think that the 50,000 hotels Expedia have to offer is not especially limiting.

I appreciate that coverage in small provincial towns may be a little thin, but in major cities, and especially in Europe and the US, coverage in cities is very good.

For instance, if you are going to Paris and want somewhere near Notre Dame, just enter "Notre Dame, Paris" and you'll get hotels centred on Notre Dame. If it's a budget trip, filter by lowest price, and you'll get the 30 lowest priced hotels, but if it's a special occasion click on "Recommended" and you'll get the top30 by Expedia recommendations. You can of course add your own filter criteria to narrow it down further, and only hotels which meet your criteria and which have vacancies for your travel dates will appear on the map, with the daily rate for your visit shown on each hotel. If you want to consider a wider area, zoom out and you'll get hotels automatically loaded for the wider area that meet your screening criteria.

Or maybe you're arriving by train at Grand Central in New York and you want a hotel nearby. Just enter "Grand central, New York" and you'll get hotels centred around a pin placed on Grand central station which you can then filter by price or by recommendation.

Contrary to what seems to be the verdict here, we think that is pretty useful. And that is also the concensus from elsewhere, to the extent that we are already getting bookings before we even start to promote it in earnest.

One current shortcoming no one has mentioned is that prices are all in £uk, but that will be resolved over the weekend so that you'll have a choice of £ or $usd, to be followed by the Euro and other currencies.

 

[wizer]

Roger, tell me if I'm being nosey, but how do you generate revenue? Purely by commission via bookings?

 

[RogerM]

Roger, tell me if I'm being nosey, but how do you generate revenue? Purely by commission via bookings?

:duno: [-X