[nadreg]

Hi All,

I am planning on making some more changes to the hotels section, primarily aimed at making it easier to keep up-to-date, improving the accuracy of information, and improving the user experience as well.

I'd like to hear opinions on the current hotels section, please. Specifically, what you think works, what you think needs improvement, what features you use the most, what features you think are not needed, etc. And if you've never used the hotels section, why not?

I would really appreciate you taking the time to provide this valuable feedback in this thread.

Thanks.

[yathri]

Hi,

Can you please include the following in the Hampi Hotel section. (I could not figure out how to add more hotels or reviews). Also, I have some more information which I would like to add about Hampi in general. How should I do it? Please help

1. Hotel Mayura Bhuvaneshwari
Good accommodation. Has a Bar. Credit Cards are NOT accepted.
Location: Kamalapur, Hampi
Telephone: 08394 241474 / 08394 241574

Price:
Presidential Suite - Rs. 5000
AC Deluxe - Rs. 1600
AC Semi Deluxe - Rs 1175
Check out time: 12 Noon

2. Mowgli Guest House
Location: Virupapur Gaddi, Hampi
Good Accommodation. Check out Shanthi Guest House next door before taking a room here. They have better view.

3. Shanthi Guest House
Excellent sunset view. Good Accommodation.
Location: Virupapur Gaddi, Hampi
Price: 200 to 400.

4. Ranjana Guest House & Nargila Restaurant
Accommodation with basic facilities. Check Shanthi & Mowgli before taking a room here. If you need a peaceful place & dont care about views, this place is good. They play movie too.
Location: Virupapur Gaddi, Hampi
Price: 150 to 300 (Demand & Supply theory works here)
Telephone: +91 9449654510 / +91 9449171754

5. Mango Tree Restaurant
Location: Behind Virupaksha Temple, Near Sacred Bath, Hampi
Good restaurant with a very good view. They have rooms too. Check out this place if you are on this side of Hampi.

[machadinha]

Originally Posted by yathri

(I could not figure out how to add more hotels or reviews).

Hotel reviews can only be added by people with a certain number of posts (and perhaps a certain period of membership).

Also, I have some more information which I would like to add about Hampi in general. How should I do it? Please help

Click "Forums" (top left of any page). Click (in this case) >States In India >Karnataka. Click "New Thread" (top left). Write thread, give it a clear and catchy title, and submit. Presto (Alternatively, find an existing relevant thread & add your information to it. Keep a note of posting dates, you may not want to add it to a years-old thread.)

btw Nadreg, sorry for never responding to your call for comments just above, I just don't use the Hotel Listings a lot. What I would still like to see is the possibility to add a listing leaving at least the ranking field blank, or set to "n/a" or something, so one can submit hotels one hasn't actually stayed in and so doesn't want to rank, but nonetheless feels are worth mentioning.

[machadinha]

nb

Originally Posted by machadinha

What I would still like to see is the possibility to add a listing leaving at least the ranking field blank, or set to "n/a" or something, so one can submit hotels one hasn't actually stayed in and so doesn't want to rank, but nonetheless feels are worth mentioning.

OK so I thought I'd check on that. It looks like if you want to Add (a new) Hotel, this already works fine, without any mandatory fields that may get in your way. It's when you want to Add a Review (to an existing hotel listing) that there are five mandatory rating fields that could get in your way if you haven't actually stayed there. One could fill in just anything here of course, but it wouldn't be very fair to either over- or underrate such places, and it would make their overall ratings go skewered. (There are places where I specifically went to take pictures and/or make enquiries; or had a nice dinner and so inquired about room prices, and such. Or was just kindly directed to a cheaper place, not meaning those places themselves didn't look OK, but they were just over my budget. Etc.)

[yathri]

Thanks MACHADINHA.

So will the hotels I listed get listed in IndiaMike? Should I wait till I post the "x" no. of posts & "x" no. of days?

[machadinha]

No idea; probably the admin or a mod would have to do it for you, if they see this and/or feel like it

I guess you could wait till you have a few more posts, then see if they've been listed, or add them yourself. Probably the more elegant solution too, as they'd then be listed with you as the poster.

[Shivani Skydancer]

The main problem with the hotels section on India Mike is that we are not posting enough reviews! Maybe we are cautious of sharing our favorite hotels for fear they will become too popular and we won't be able to get a booking :-)

Also I've noticed many bogus reviews that were posted by the hotel or someone they've bribed to do it for them.

Trip Advisor is still the one I turn to for more up to date and extensive accommodation advice...

[nadreg]

You're going to need a few more posts before you can add the reviews yourself. You need to get to 10.

Shivani, if you can point me to the reviews you think are bogus, I will remove them. I am working on modifications to the hotels section to make it easier to add hotels and reviews, and to make it easier for the community to keep the content relevant. I don't think IM can compete with TripAdvisor for the depth of hotel content and reviews that they have, but it should be a way for the community to share trusted reviews amongst itself.

What I'm looking for is feedback from the community on ways to improve it so that it is a valuable resource to the community.

[yathri]

Yippee.... I have got access to add Hotels!! Thanks Nadreg & Machadinha.

[vonkla]

Nadreg,
For our next itinerary I was looking at Sikkim part of the hotel section.

On the state-wise overview there are three pages with hotels, on the right side it says, divided in two cities:
-Gangtok
-Other cities

In the Gangtok section are about 10 hotels, in the other city section : none.

Since there are so few hotels in the Sikkim section this attract attention and on the other hand it is nearly a problem.

But if this also occurs by other states, reviews of hotels in 'other cities' cannot be found easily.

[nadreg]

Hi Vonkla,

Yes, the whole "other" city entry has caused problems. I had set it up as a kludge on my part, and it's come back to bite me in the butt.

I have a fix coming out soon... Thanks for pointing this out.