GLOBOsapiens intern talk group posting on GLOBOsapiens

Verified Travel Tips

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andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8313 Posts: 809 Posted: 2004-11-03 18:45:00    Hello fellow GLOBO members, as some of you already might now, or you are even part of it, there are verified travel tips comming up on GLOBO. At the moment travel tips are not listed inside the global menu, but hidden inside member pages. Now I would like to bring out the hidden gems to the public. With listing them into the main menu and placing some into the first page. Now the main work is done and the the upload forms for the comanies are programmed. I have placed an example so you know what I am talking about: http://www.globosapiens.net/andreas/travel-tip-guverner-robinsons-330.html http://www.globosapiens.net/andreas/travel-tips.html This is a win win situation, as everybody wins. The members as their sites get visited more often they get better known plus they might get a 50 points bonus on each verified listing. The visitor as he can find the tip and rely on its data. The company as it gets new visitors and last but not least GLOBOsapiens since its reputation for good info will raise plus the listings are not for free. So to give it a start, I picked a listing from spaceout: http://www.globosapiens.net/spaceout/travel-tip-bostonian-executive-suites-1055.html I contacted the owner by phone so she could add this info, but says she does not want to because of the bad comment of the travel tip, plus some details (free parking) is not correct. So this brings up a serious problem where I am not sure how to vercome it. Of course the objective of the custormer (spaceout) is what makes the tip special, but she just might has not know that parking is not free, plus the bad comment about the seedy area.. not sure if this is really like this since the owner said it is not. Well. How to deal with such cases in the future? Loads of questions. As you see the service is in its early days. But I think those small problems can be solved and the system adjusted. I would particularily be interested into all your opinions on that and maybe on suggestions on how to give this service a push to start. Best regards, Andy Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   picasso Premium account Joined: Aug 04 Points: 10057 Posts: 79 Posted: 2004-11-03 20:12:00    Hello Andy, you came out with a great idea about travel tips As a professional in travel business, I could state that unfortunately management of hotels, restaurants, cars, and air companies can change their cervices at any time, without even letting us as travel professionals know about certain changes, that they have don. When Viki, had stayed at Bostonian-at that time of her stay, the parking at the hotel probably was free, but then the management/owner of the hotel had decided to change the parking status. And also companies could be sold and new owner/manager also could unfortunately change the parking cost, but also property name, property raiting, could add a free continental beakfest, or exclude it, could cancel, or add room service… Moreover, principally every hotel property, car agency, air company, tour operator and even restaurant represents themself on the net. Please refer to HOTEL BOOKING, VACATION RENTAL on my site: www. LAKESIDE PARADISE TRAVEL.com For more up to date hotel information. … I’m personally relying on this info, and so far never had any problems! [I had to take out this link as it was breaking the site layout due to an extreme wide character set (andy)] Regards, Boris [ This Message was edited by: andreas on 2004-11-03 20:18 ] --- BORIS Reply    Reply with quote    Contact picasso   andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8313 Posts: 809 Posted: 2004-11-03 20:21:00    Hello Boris, I understand what you mean. About your company. This is the wrong topic to discuss that. If you are interested on advertising at GLOBO just drop me an email. The Travel now link did not work since it contained to many parameters and it broke the sites layout so I did have to take this off you posting. Andy Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   rangutan Premium account Joined: Aug 04 Points: 34752 Posts: 1044 Posted: 2004-11-04 00:38:00    I dont think phoning is feasable! A starting (and test) strategy would be to perhaps take only the three-thumbs-up entries and send the businesses an email asking them to simply comment on the entry. This gives them an opportunity to; 1) VERIFY 2) confirm/change the details 3) add pictures/info/comments and 4) if wanted, get paid advertising space under "Additional Resources" or elsewhere. I see not all tips have email addresses, try info@[domain] or webmaster@[domain], most should have a contact, but perhaps members could go back and fill that info in if they want the points! --- Rudolf "Rangutan" Graspointner Reply    Reply with quote    Contact rangutan   mortimer Premium account Joined: Jun 04 Points: 15075 Posts: 528 Posted: 2004-11-04 11:20:00    Hi Andy I agree with Rudi that postive travel tips are the ones that most probably will be verified in the end. I'm not sure at the moment, Andy, will all the travel tips be available and searchable for all members or just the verified? Because if a non verified is not showing up on the list why should somebody bother in trying to correct a wrong information. Martin --- Today is the first day of the rest of your life, enjoy it! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact mortimer   spaceout Premium account Joined: Jun 02 Points: 20307 Posts: 56 Posted: 2004-11-05 01:28:00    Andy and I had a converstion via email earlier.. this is the email I sent him regarding the matter.. what are your reflection on the situation... Email to Andy: Patrick (Greentoes) and I believe that you idea is great. It will definitely credify the travel tips. I'm sure that in the past you've found tips that weren't valid or whatnot, this will definitely put Globo creditable. We are all for it..:-) As per the Bostonian Hotel.... Well, I can remove the 'seedy area' and the 'free parking'. Although when we were there, the parking was free. Therefore that must of changed. As per the seediness, I can remove it too, but this is the situation of the Bostonian. It is really situated in a seedy area. As a woman, I wouldn't walk that street alone, it is not well lighted nor is the parking lot. I do believe that it can be unsafe at night. And I'm not a 'scaredy' woman either. I wouldn't want someone to actually book this 3 star hotel and be in precarious situations because it wasn't mentionned. I do believe that Globo wants its travelers to be safe. Also as per the rooms they were clean, yet there were reddish suspicious spots on the carpet and on the couch. I did write the hotel a 'letter' regarding this matter and hope that they did remedy to those shady spots. Although no one did get back in touch with us. Patrick and I would return to the Bostonian, but I wouldn't return as a woman traveling alone. I would chose another area. Maybe to verify hotels or other travel tips would be to have a few different people stay and give their opinions before certifying it. VK and Patrick --- Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) Reply    Reply with quote    Contact spaceout   spaceout Premium account Joined: Jun 02 Points: 20307 Posts: 56 Posted: 2004-11-05 01:29:00    Picasso is probably right about the parking situation..:-) --- Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) Reply    Reply with quote    Contact spaceout   andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8313 Posts: 809 Posted: 2004-11-05 01:37:00    Hi, I agree with spaceout. The seedy area should stay in there, it was her who was there and it is her right to say that if it was her impression. We will work on the concept and find a solution. Regards, andy Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   spaceout Premium account Joined: Jun 02 Points: 20307 Posts: 56 Posted: 2004-11-05 05:32:00    How about travel tips would have a rating system more detailed and with a community opinion instead of just one individual at a time? We could have a 5 thumbs rating system instead of 3 and that would give people a more specific idea of the tip's rating. We could also have thumb rating for the location (seedy vs safe) a distance rating (far or close to attractions), service/rooms (clerks, neatness of room etc) and price (cheap to expensive, as we already have) Also everytime one would add a travel tip, if the same name and phone number is the same as another travel tip it could give a sum rating for that particular tip. Therefore it could give a more variable opinion than just one. And it would all be within the globo community. What do you think about this system? VK --- Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) Reply    Reply with quote    Contact spaceout   mortimer Premium account Joined: Jun 04 Points: 15075 Posts: 528 Posted: 2004-11-05 11:40:00    Hi What a good idea to have more ratings about the places in the travel tips. However the wished categories would not be applicable to all different travel tip categories, they are basically only for hotels, restaurants. At a museum the cleanliness or friendliness is not very important to me. Perhaps we should have detailed rating possibities for every individual travel tip category. Then there is also the question about whether to inlcude bad tips too one two three tumbs down... Just to inform people about rip off places... I'm not sure about this because in general we are a positive community. And as always ratings are very personal. Especially the price rating: Budget, mid range, expensive. We could instead or moreover state a paid price then everybody can decide for himself. Martin --- Today is the first day of the rest of your life, enjoy it! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact mortimer   Page: 1 2 3