When a Picture Is Not Worth a Thousand Words
My experience began when I decided to book a hotel for a special trip to Los Angeles, California. I am usually careful when I plan to travel, especially when it is with my children. I always start by looking for the best options in airline tickets, hotels, restaurants, etc. For this reason, I always look around for all kinds of advertisements on the Web at least a week before I travel.
This particular trip was planned well ahead of time. I was going to take my five-year-old son to Disneyland for the first time. Even though the most important thing for my husband and son was to enjoy the magical world of Disneyland, I was worried about the hotel that we were going to stay at.
The Internet can give you many options in just seconds. First of all, the page starts with simple questions about dates, number of people, and the kind of hotel that you are looking for; luxury, moderate or budget. Of course, booking on the Internet is very comfortable and convenient for Web visitors. On this particular occasion, I was looking for a nice and clean hotel; not too expensive, like the Disneyland Park Resorts, but a good hotel with nice accommodations, clean rooms, a nice environment, near the parks, and a free continental breakfast.
I was glad to see that I had more than thirty options and happy with the idea that I could have all the information that I needed to choose the best hotel for my family so easily. After checking out what was available, I made a choice. A well-known chain was my best option (apparently at that time). The hotel page showed me great pictures of the resort. It had a huge lobby with a lovely stone front desk, nice and spacious rooms, and a granite bath tub. Outside there was a fancy fountain, and the restaurant inside the hotel looked very good. Everything seemed to be perfect; in fact, more than I was asking for. I felt lucky to have found this hotel close to Disneyland, especially since it was summer time.
With high expectations of what I had picked for our five day vacation, we arrived at our destination. My first impression was terrible! Mexicans always say that the first impression is the most important. Well, the wonderful lobby that I had seen on the Internet was completely different. The front desk was ugly and dusty and the person who attended to us wasn’t very polite and he looked tired and not happy with his job. When we went up to our room we felt disappointed one more time. The suite that we had reserved was old, not so clean, and very small. The granite bathtub was cracked and the water did not run well. The restaurant was also small and very dark. Additionally, the business center which on the Web had looked very clean, private, and comfortable, was a real cheat. In reality, it consisted of two small desks with two dusty computers, uncomfortable chairs, and surprise! not a private room at all. It was in the lobby. I remembered the fancy picture of the fountain that looked huge and elegant but which in reality was very simple and miniature.
I felt frustrated because the Internet search that had taken me more than four days had turned into a big disappointment and it was not my fault. Many of the pictures and videos that I had seen on the Internet were very different from reality. To be honest, with the exception of the “business center”, the information that the Web site provided was real; we had all the services that they had offered, but the pictures on the Internet site were a lie. Because I was discontented with my hotel, I started to look at the front of many of the hotels that I had seen on more than three sites that specialize in booking tourist hotel reservations. I was surprised to see that most of them were not as beautiful as the Internet pictured them. It was obvious that some electronic pictures were enhanced with “Photoshop” or some other software.
This was not my first disappointment in choosing a hotel on line. The same had happened in San Antonio and in my own country (Mexico). I can understand hotel owners want to attract guests to their resorts. However, these guests will be annoyed and displeased the moment that they see that they are paying for something they don’t really like and had not expected. I agree that some pictures need to be enhanced to sell a product or a service; nonetheless, there is a big difference between enhancing a picture and distorting the truth!
So how do you avoid choosing the wrong hotel on the Internet? One way is to read all the comments left on the site by other guests. These can be very revealing. Another is to choose a hotel from a reputable chain which is known to be reliable.
The Internet is great, but be careful and do your homework before you pay for something you might not like!
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