Greetings! Need some feedback...

Hi all! I'm working on a project of mine and I need some help with it. It's a website (www.cruisingindia.com) I've created to help travelers in India, and I need some feedback from fellow travelers.

Let me stress that I am NOT a travel agent. My site is NOT commercial. No ads, no pop unders.... just a pet project I thought about after I traveled around India this year. Kinda like this site.

I'd LOVE to hear any and all comments about it. You can email me at contactus@cruisingindia.com.

Thanks!!!

P.S. I'm also looking for "local experts" living in India to help me collect content for the site. If you're looking to earn some pocket money, let me know.

Nice idea, a few early observations.

The site seems to be aimed at Indians (only phone numbers given for hotels).

No prices (or price guide) for hotels is a major disappointment (especially when there are no website links).

Do you have a way to check the authenticity of any hotel/restaurant review?

Keep up the good work.

First of all.. thanks for the feedback Steven.

Actually, I'm planning on adding email addresses and website links for the hotels in the next couple of days. I have some pricing information that I'm planning on putting up, but I'm not sure how accurate it is, since it changes seasonally.

Looks like a good site shaping up. It was nice to read someone elses opinion of Chowki Dhani.

The site suggests joining it, but it is not clear to me where to do that.

What are you goal with the site?

Thanks for the feedback!

It's still in the very early stages, which is why I'm looking for people to help me add content to it. But my main goal is to build a India travel community, by tying together people living in India, foreigners traveling to India, as well as hotels and travel agents.

Right now, there is no registration or login with the site, although I'm working on that and should have it up soon. However, travelers can submit Hotel and Restaurant Reviews, Things-To-Do, Things-To-Avoid, etc right now without registering.

Indiamike already does that, though I can see you have a different approach.

You will face one major problem....TRAVEL AGENTS

Indiamike is 4 years old and has only just got rid of one of it's forums, it was called..Travel Agents & Tour Operators.

It allowed agents one free advert and allowed them to answer questions from other members.

I would say there have been more than 500 'Travel Agents' joined Indiamike, yes you can count on one hand the amount who have stuck to the rules.

Even with 6 active moderators, it all became too much for us, these wa***rs will try anything and everything, the list is endless, the more active your site becomes the bigger the target your site becomes.

Good luck.

Hi,

Sounds like a good idea! Maybe you could conduct a focus group on IM with people who volunteer to add value to the site through their ideas and comments.

There are quite a few things that can be done to fill the gap for information hungry people when they decide to visit or move to India.

Let me know if you need any help in India as I am based in Delhi.

Keep up the good work!

Rohan

Well, right now I need help with content. Ideally, I'd like to get travelers in India to start inputting content. Another thought was to hire a couple of college students in India to help me out. ANything you can do to help with content would be greatly appreciated!

That would be fantastic. I'd love to get something like this started. I'm kinda new to this site, so I'm not exactly sure how to do this. I'll read around and see if I can figure it out.

Thanks!

if it's "kinda like this site . . ."

then why not just post here? why another website?

Couple of reasons:

1. The cruisingindia.com site is organized differently. It's more of a research and review site, while IndiaMike is forum based.
2. I had already created and launched it before I found the IndiaMike website. So... having spent all this time on it I don't want to shut it down.

Bijapuri and Steven have already voiced my concerns. Given your last comment: You could make it a "referral site" to travel agents and hotels. Something IM moderators do not want to get into.

It seems to me that the amount and detail of information about hotels is exactly what is currently missing from IM's hotels listing. Why not work with Mike to merge the two? Given that a new "Review" section is under construction anyway, this might be perfect timing. That way, your work could be combined with the fabulous resources available here already.

On another note, the use of the word "cruising" might give people a misleading idea about the goals of the site.

Alchemy - Yeah I thought that term was kind of funny. I typed in 'Cruisy' at dictionary dot com. No term came up but the following web ad links did...

Gay Hotels
Gay Holidays
Cruising Holidays
FT Lauderdale Gay
Montreal Gay Bathhouse

LOL! Oh well, atleast I'll be creating a niche for myself in the India travel community. I hadn't heard about the "other" meaning of "cruising", but that's been pointed out to me a couple of times already.

The idea of combining this somehow with IM would be cool. Anyone know how I can get in touch with Mike?

Send Mike a private message.

But don't be surprised if you get a 2-word reply, travel agents have drove Mike and the moderators nuts, especially over the last 18 months, we have only just got rid of the 'Travel Agents' forum in the last couple of weeks.

Your website is going to be a magnet for all those same travel agents, they will post with false names, keep changing their names, and basicly make your life hell (if you want to keep the info on your website honest).