Travel On The Dollar » Hotels

The Oberoi, Mumbai reopens

Travel On The Dollar — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:27:25 +0000

The Oberoi, Mumbai

Since the 2008 terror attacks shook Mumbai to its core we’ve witnessed the determination and drive of the city gradually restore those areas most shook, including its grandest hotels. What began with the opening of the Taj Mahal Palace last year will be completed this week by the grand opening of The Oberoi, Mumbai.

The new look Oberoi is a formidable giant on the Mumbai hotel scene reflected by the 14 floored marble-clad atrium, just under 300 guest rooms and three restaurants for diners.

Look forward to Michelin starred chef Vineet Bhatia in Ziya, an Indian speciality restaurant and Enoteca – a glass-encased library of wine with more than 1,200 bottles to peruse. Decanting the decadence one step further is the cocktail serving Eau Bar and Champagne Lounge.

Let’s not forget that with 21 floors up for grabs the real star has to be the views out across the ocean and of Mumbai itself. It really is hope in a hotel.

The Oberoi Mumbai, opens Saturday 24th April, for details contact reservations@oberoigroup.com or visit oberoihotels.com

Picture Courtesy: oberoihotels.com

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AirBnB finds a cheap accommodation

Travel On The Dollar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:23:13 +0000

Looking to see the sights but not looking forward to paying high hotel prices? Take advantage of AirBnB to find some nice, usually economical, local accommodations.

Similar to previously mentioned iStopOver, AirBnB lets you search for accommodations in your city of choice. People with a spare room put up listings complete with photographs, amenities, and ratings from other AirBnB users. You can currently find a room in 77 countries and 1102 cities. Mix in a little flexibility on your part and you’ll be hard pressed to find metropolitan areas short a room or two.

Accommodations range from something as simple as a spare room to even guest houses and cabins.

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Best Western in Asia launches Buy One Get One promotion

Travel On The Dollar — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:35:22 +0000

Best Western has launched a new campaign that offers guests one free room night for one paid room night at hotels and resorts in eight prime countries across Asia – Bali, China, India, Japan, Macau, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

To qualify, guests must book between July 20 and Aug 2 for travel through Oct 31. The offer is on a first come, first served basis and is dependent upon availability.

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Oyster offers virtual search for consumers, branding tie-ins for advertisers

Travel On The Dollar — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:48:44 +0000

Advertisers looking to connect with consumers at the moment they are ready to make a purchase might find it in a travel site debuting today. Oyster, a New York-based hotel review site, serves up details on about 500 hotels in Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Miami, New York and Las Vegas — but there are more destinations on the way. Visitors can search by hotel rating, price, location, amenities and more. The site’s search engine can find information on a variety of hotels, such as luxury, family, pet-friendly and romantic. Going to Miami? Topical searches range from nearby adventures to family services. Photos with captions paint a picture of each location, so consumers know what they agree to before plunking down the bucks for the business destination or the vacation spot of their dreams.

The unedited photographs provide details of lobbies, hallways, guestrooms and amenities, such as pools, restaurants and bars and spas. And while content provides consumers with the tool to find the perfect hotel, the possibilities for brands like Tommy Bahamas, Virgin America and Hyatt Hotels to tie in advertising are endless. That includes Crest, Colgate and Charmin because the site reviews bathrooms, too.

Visitors to Oyster won’t find advertising on the site today, but possibilities to generate revenue come from targeted paid advertising, as well as transactions, such as selling the room night to the site visitor, according to Eytan Seidman, who cofounded the site with brother Elie Seidman after leaving the Microsoft Live Search team, now Bing.com.

The product roadmap site visitors will find an engine to search and retrieve airline flight information to any hotel destination reviewed, Seidman says.

Oyster features 50,000 unedited photos and nearly a million words of copy that search engines can index and rank well over time. “That’s where our search expertise comes into play,” Seidman says. “The on-site search index is Google-fast. Queries load in less than one second.”

Seidman says the site runs on a custom index that supports information on tens of thousands of hotels, compared with most engines using off-the-shelf databases that can’t perform. He believes the site will rank well in search engines because it has great content to which other sites will link and was designed from the ground up to accommodate search engine crawlers from Bing, Google, Yahoo and others.

Oyster has nearly a dozen on-staff reporters who visit locations anonymously, take pictures and write reviews on everything from restaurants and spas, to the brand of toiletry and television in the rooms. Pearls, rather than stars — from one to five — rate the destinations. A space for comments gives hotel patrons a place to write about experiences, too. A view of the surrounding location on Google Maps offers information on nearby roadways, businesses and more.

Bain Capital Ventures and Oyster founders funded the company.

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Booking hotels online?

Travel On The Dollar — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:24:21 +0000

The next time you’re looking at hotels online, try www.biddingfortravel.com and www.betterbidding.com.

Consumer Reports readers recommend both sites for helping you figure out which hotels you’re being offered on Priceline or Hotwire.

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We’re on Hospitality Club

Travel On The Dollar — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:33:12 +0000

What is Hospitality Club?

It’s an online community to bring people together – hosts and guests, travelers and locals. Thousands of Hospitality Club members around the world help each other when they are traveling – be it with a roof for the night or a guided tour through town. Joining is free, takes just a minute and everyone is welcome. Members can look at each other’s profiles, send messages and post comments about their experience on the website.

The club is supported by volunteers who believe in one idea: by bringing travelers in touch with people in the place they visit, and by giving “locals” a chance to meet people from other cultures we can increase intercultural understanding and strengthen the peace on our planet.

You will meet friendly people and find free accommodation when you travel to any corner of the world. There are no obligations (you do not have to host anyone at your home!), membership is free and we would love to have you in our world wide web of friendly people!

TOTD Member on Hospitality Club

One of our contributors recently joined this club and is offering accommodations in Los Angeles. If you’re visiting Los Angeles, then it’d be a great way to meet ‘locals’ and know the places you want to visit. His user id is ‘parindshah’, so contact him (through his profile) and you can make an excellent friend and stay for free!

TOTD Member on Hospitality Club

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iStopOver – Search rooms and offices for rent

Travel On The Dollar — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:36:13 +0000

If you’re comfortable staying at a stranger’s home while traveling, iStopOver is a service that connects travelers with locals renting rooms—at rates well below local hotels. And is the place on the Internet for direct rental of excess capacity in homes and offices.

Guests (Travelers) use iStopOver to find accommodation in someone’s home as an alternative to paying high hotel rates. Usually priced well below average hotel rooms, renting a room on iStopOver offers real value. You won’t find impersonal check-in, loud noise from other guests, and extra charges at every step. In many cases, it gives you the opportunity to “live like a local”.

iStopOver Search results for New York

The service operates like a hotel search engine, you enter the city and the dates you’ll be visiting that city and iStopOver returns the available rooms for rent. You can check out pictures of the location, see it on a Google Maps mashup, the available price, and if the room has been rented consistently even see ratings from previous visitors. Everything is handled by iStopOver, including the transfer of money between parties. When you arrive at your selected location you give the owner a code which they use to tell iStopOver that you’ve arrived. If things aren’t like they promised you can leave without ever “checking in” and iStopOver will refund your money.

Hosts (Homeowners/Office managers) use iStopOver to post listings to rent out excess capacity in their home or office, on a short-term basis, directly to Guests. iStopOver is the facilitator to connect Guests to Hosts. The interaction and rental process takes place directly between the Host and the Guest – in Internet terms, a peer-to-peer process. There are no agencies, no pressure – you deal directly with each other.

In the home market, iStopOver facilitates short-term home-away-from-home B&B style accommodation with good, old- fashioned value. We believe that someone, halfway around the world, is as much your neighbor as the guy next door, it’s just a longer walk to borrow a cup of sugar.

Website: www.istopover.com

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