Close User Name Password
Hotel stories straight to your inbox:

Tags: / / /

Again, May We Remind You: Don't Judge a Hotel By Its Website

November 9, 2007 at 9:30 AM | by femmefatale | 2 Comments

The faboo Monica Guy, who is becoming a younger, more attractive Andy Rooney in this space, makes another appearance on HotelChatter today. This time, she wants to know why hotels sometimes have such crappy websites. Enjoy.

And speaking of hotels with outdated websites....

Our legendary Buenos Aires correspondent Matt Chesterton once wrote a slamming piece on the Onze Trendy Hotel in Buenos Aires, namely for the poor grammar on the homepage and the verbose new-agey description. That got Matt into a spot of trouble over in BA (he may or may not be in the witness protection program now), but we think of it every time we check out a hotel's god-awful website.

Why do hoteliers spend millions of dollars on their hotels, thousands on their chefs, hundreds on their potted plant decorations and pillowcases, at least ten on their staff training, and then display it all to the world with a fluffed website?

We don't mean the ones that are simply bad, a poor attempt at reaching into the 21st century, by someone who doesn't know their bits from their bytes. A bit sad, really. But at least they tell you what you want to know, without any frills and Flash.

We mean, for example, the websites that just don't tell you anything. Like the Hotel Amour. If it lives up to its reputation, that's probably best.

Or the other type, more fun. Where someone's obviously spent a lot of time and effort and money on website design 'consultants'. And then come up with a laughably ridiculous attempt at trendiness.

Here's one of our favourites: the Kube Hotel Paris. Artavantgardebubblechair? What does that mean? And those dancing Japanese dudes? What are they doing there? Are you supposed to bop to the music while you search sneakily for hotels when you're supposed to be working? It's a tribute to the use of Flash. Take a look when your boss isn't there, just for a laugh.

Can you point us to any more for out coffee-time amusement?

Related Stories:
· Luxury Hotel Guilty of Outdated Room Pics [HotelChatter]

2 Comments

Post a Comment
  1. Hotelmgr

    HotelChatter Member

    Re: Again, May We Remind You: Don't Judge a Hotel

    I like the hotel Kube web site (((-:

    Really useless if you're planning to stay there, but somewhat fun to play with. The music is way too loud and I usually turn it off immediately.

    It's only disappointing that you cannot crash the little character onto a wall and although I've tried I did not get his girlfriend to get onto the bed with him (wink wink).

    I must confess though that I used their web site a few years ago as an example of what some creative (yet goofy) people were doing, while we were having the sadest looking web site of all...

    November 12, 2007 at 10:11 AM
  1. femmefatale

    HotelChatter Contributing Editor

    Re: Again, May We Remind You: Don't Judge a Hotel

    You got time to try 'n' crash Japanese dudes on weird websites into walls? You've got way too much time on your hands...

    I don't know - these websites with their music and flash and dancing dudes are all very funny. But my boss is disabled and uses a blinking system to navigate the internet. It takes long enough with a normal website - it's completely impossible with sites like the Kube.

    I guess it shows what the Kube is like - I can't imagine the bouncers there letting in anyone disabled, ugly, or past the age of 29...

    Although no-one will be coming to any hotels in Paris for a while if the blimmin' transport workers keep striking...chaos...

    November 15, 2007 at 2:32 PM

Leave a Comment

Not yet a member? Click here to become a member.

Already a member? Log in below:

Comment with your Facebook account.