Category: Travel

Istanbul and the art of booking a hotel online: Nothing Zen! Part 2

After publishing part 1 of this story, I asked my friend the frequently traveling CEO, for suggestions, but alas he had no other suggestions than only Istanbul’s most expensive and luxury top hotels. So there I go with my conclusion in part 1.

My lady friend who organizes the trip for “Art en Route” came up with a travel agency that suggested following hotels:

and

Finally, however, on suggestion of the travel agent, a reservation has been made at the Celal Sultan Hotel.

We will see what will happen and I will keep you posted later this year.

Just for now I would like to conclude that at least for group travel a travel agent still seems a better bet than a DIY reservation. Especially because various hotels put only a small number of rooms available through travel portals or even through their own website, or have no possibilities to book well in advance.

A Skeleton Attache: Ideal if you have no secrets nor dirty laundry.

Skeleton Attache 01

Hideo Stores stores sells this stylish attache. The designer is Hideo Wakamatsu, a Japanese designer based in Tokyo. He draws on Japanese and French design traditions.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Hideo is the scion of a family business that is Japan’s leading maker of “randoseru”raditional Japanese schoolbags. After studying Japanese and French art and literature in university in Japan, Hideo moved to Paris where he spent the next ten years immersing himself in European culture and working with a wide range of bag makers. He then brought this experience back to the family business in Japan, where his brand is headquartered. Hideo now lives in Tokyo, but regularly travels throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

It is also available in a trolley version. Maybe something to put your laptop in, so that you don’t have to take it out at the airport security (?).

Backpackers on High Heels

Backpackers on high heels

Backpackers on High Heels: Bangkok is a site that originates in Amsterdam, well the registrant has his address in Amsterdam. Currently it gives a stylish presentation about where to go, eat sleep and party in Bangkok.

Amsterdam, Hanoi and Bali are to follow soon.

Travel In Blogs : A new travel community?

Recently the blog Travel in Blogs seems to have started a sort of Travel Blog community. From the outset it seams a great idea, but there is hardly anything available on the site about the site, about who does it and why they do it.

What do you think?

Added 15 March:

The basic idea is that Bloggers submit stories that can be voted upon like the Diggs and Del.icio.us es of this world. In one view you can get the hottest posts. But there are many other alike initiatives. For the moment I am reasonably content with the Google reader which loads very fast and gives you a fast means of browsing the blogs you like to read. Another issue is that the admin (whoever he may be) seems to get his ideas from a blog that looks as if it is a pure scraper or maybe even a Splog. I wont mention it here because I don’t want to grant it a link.

It is registered in the name of a thus far undisclosed person at the same address as the “aggregators” or “scrapers” i am referring to:

DreamHost Web Hosting
417 Associated Rd #324
Brea, CA 92821
US
+1.2139471032

Record created on 2007-03-09 18:34:56.
Record expires on 2008-03-09 18:34:56.

Added after the comment of David of Travelhorizons:

There are some ramifications here why I am still not sure.

I suppose if it would be non – human, they would have programmed the spider bot so that it would publish posts (I submitted 3 or 4 myself) as soon as possible and would not leave them unattended for 48 hours or more. No attention is much more human than bot alike I would think.

Furthermore, I believe that I have seen Albert Barra making a comment somewhere that he had to do with this Blog. But I can’t reproduce the comment anymore. That would also explain why there is a Spanish section. Ah, wait, it was not a comment I can reproduce what I thought I had seen: it is this post More about the T-List, on his Blog, but my Spanish is insufficient to understand what he tells in his post, even if I use Alta Vista Babel Fish.

Also it is notable that as a comment on a post by self proclaimed spin doctor Martin Schobert, of the Austrian Blog in the German language, Kulinarisch Reisen (i.e. Travel Culinary) about The T-List a certain Danay asks attention for the Blog in question:

Can the T-List go Web2.0?

We have recently launched TravelinBlogs.com.

TIB is a social network for the Travel and Hospitality Community. This site allows you to submit an article that will be reviewed by all and will be promoted, based on popularity, to the main page.

We encourage all Blogs of the T-List to sumbit their content and get additional traffic to their blogs.

Best regards,
Danay

Danay seems human and like me not a native English speaker (“sumbit”).

So again: is it a hoax of for real, what do you think?

Update:

I’ve taken out the link as, sadly, when Albert tried to move the site to another server, he lost all of it. Later I met Albert at WTM in London. He is a very likable person.

Last edited by Happy Hotelier on February 25, 2010 at 9:14 am

E-Hotel: a Latvian Hotelier’s Blog

I found an incoming link from E-Hotel, a Blog that a Latvian Hotelier started recently.

Ehotel is written by a hotelier from Latvia, Europe with more than 4 year experience in hospitality business and MBA.

Working in a hotel and studying I have understood that there are many things I still don`t know about hotels and there are even more things that others don`t know about hotels. Many people think that one doesn`t need much knowledge to work in a hotel. At the same time hoteliers need to educate clients about how hotels operate, what are the rules etc. I hope this place will let to better understand the hotel business.

I think a Latvian Blog in English is a nice addition to the Travel Blogging community.

Update

November 30, 2009. I have erased the url, because this blog has become another member of the Great Dead Travel Blog Society since there is no action whatsoever anymore.