Written on March 21, 2008 – 2:13 am | by admin |
HotelReservations is an American-based online hotel reservations portal, where you can book a variety of accommodations: hotels, motels, B&Bs and condos located in nearly all countries worldwide for your next trip.
Their database is quite extensive so you have many places from which to choose. Secondary to hotel reservations, are vacation packages which may include hotel plus car rentals and flight reservations. The hotel system however, seems to be the focused activity here.Upon launching the site, I wanted to determine out how user-friendly the online experience was, so I did several different searches and queries, based on some trips I have coming up.User experience is self-explanatory and navigation is fairly easy for most internet users; the interface is clean and clearly understandable. There’s a link per hotel where you can open up a street map with the location of the hotel, which is very handy.
Different issues emerged as well when looking for Paris hotels. I could conveniently sort the entire list by quality, price, alphabetical order and by special offers for Paris but I wasn’t able to sort a smaller list of the hotels located within a certain arrondissement (district), which is a bit inconvenient.
HotelReservations’ prices are very competitive, some are identical to what other portals offer. That is good, as I did not see much difference in price with discount portals. Probably the best thing about about this website and their prices is: if see a lower price elsewhere online for the same place and the same dates as your reservations at HotelReservations, they will reimburse you the difference or simply cancel your reservation without penalty so that you may go with the lower agent.Another powerful point about HotelReservations is that you actually have an option to speak with a real human being via telephone.
Really! I know that sounds weird but do you realize how increasingly difficult it is to find companies with human customer support? They have a toll-free number for North America and Europe, and they have another world-wide number to call. The customer service is really exceptional, very professional, pleasant and extremely efficient.
Overall, HotelReservations is a good reservations portal, having a large database of hotels around the world. Their advantage to similar sites is that they offer different types of accommodations, not simply hotels. On the other hand, as a site of this kind, I find that a rating system for actual reviews is loudly lacking. When there are user comments and critiques or praises about a particular hotel where I might be interested in staying, I would love to see the feedback of other people who’ve stayed there. It’s usually the clincher for me and many other travelers to read this valuable information in order to make the final decision to book a place or not.
The addition of a user feedback area would not only add targeted content to the site, but also, add value in the form of information for their customers, which will bring them up to par in relation to the competitiveness of the online hotel reservations market.
Their strength is in their competitive pricing strategies, their accessibility and superb customer service by telephone and their prodigious database of hotels.
The website, though nicely designed and easy to use, has even further potential but needs to first address the language issue and sort-ability functions. Lastly, it could use a more personal touch with a rating system.
HotelReservations.com is a true competitive player in the hotel reservations industry.
Site Classification: 4,5 (0 to 5)
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