Comments on: RoomAtlas – look what a retired banker and his son can do in their spare time

By: RoomAtlas builds event organising tool, plots mobile expansion | Tnooz

RoomAtlas builds event organising tool, plots mobile expansion | Tnooz — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:53:31 +0000

[...] RoomAtlas launched in November 2009 by the ex-banker and his son and was praised not only for its inventiveness and simplicity but also ability to combine rates and availability from Expedia with TripAdvisor reviews on a single, Google Map-hosted page. [...]

By: The Week in Travel Tech - November 22 to 28 2009 | Tnooz

The Week in Travel Tech - November 22 to 28 2009 | Tnooz — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:29:49 +0000

[...] RoomAtlas – look what a retired banker and his son can do in their spare time [...]

By: Lina Zaproudi

Lina Zaproudi — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:48:37 +0000

Wasn’t there another Google maps mashup for finding hotels worldwide?
I just can’t remember the name…and I cannot find them in search.
Anyway, I wonder how they did.

Roomatlas has nice clean interface and good usability, so kudos.

By: lee

lee — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:53:34 +0000

getaroom.com would like to partner with you. Please call Lee at 305-590-5409. Thanks, lee

By: Miramon

Miramon — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:15:58 +0000

Interesting. I guess they choose deliberately to only show a very small number of hotels at a time. So the query “cambridge, ma” only displays 6 hotels, but as you zoom in closer, you can see more, including some high quality hotels. This may give a very misleading first impression of the available hotels at a destination.

By: Jonathan Alford

Jonathan Alford — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:42:45 +0000

Hi – site looks great! For those interested, having worked on both sides – the OTA private-label/affiliate side and shopping among them from the start-up side, it’s fairly straightforward to source standard deals. Expedia, hotels.com, Priceline, Kayak, and others all have them. However, since it’s pretty much a buyer’s market now, it’s likely more possible to negotiate terms than it was, say, two years ago.

What’s interesting is that most of Expedia’s companies have their own programs, but they’re not integrated well (except Expedia and hotels.com), and the ability to source joint deals with, for ex, bookable inventory from Expedia/hotels.com, TA content, deal feeds from bookingbuddy, and SEO link-sharing arrangements can be a bit maddening, so kudos to Roger and his son…

A final fun question if you’re thinking of approaching them – does Expedia want to lose business to Priceline, and vice versa…?

By: Lisa C

Lisa C — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:51:44 +0000

Like this! Very clean and easy to use/book. Will be interested to see what other partners (if any)come on board. Would be good to see smaller boutique properties included.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:31:25 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by kevinlukemay: RoomAtlas – look what a retired banker and his son can do in their spare time | Tnooz http://bit.ly/813TxZ...

By: Kevin May

Kevin May — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:23:07 +0000

Tamara:

Sorry, we mentioned it in the text: “He says the deal with Expedia-Hotels.com is commissioned-based and they may look for other partners in the future to fill gaps in hotel inventory around the world, namely Africa and Central America.”

By partners, Middleton means other hotel suppliers.

By: Tamara

Tamara — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:21:38 +0000

Really impressed with this. So rare to get something so focused and well executed.
Are they going to be offering alternative booking paths or are they tied in with Expedia as an exclusive deal I wonder.

By: Sam Daams

Sam Daams — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:13:22 +0000

Good stuff Roger! I know Tripadvisor sells reviews, as well as displaying older reviews that they don’t show on their own site anymore, on other sites that they own, but hadn’t seen this solution before. It’s nice to see it on a new site, especially one that seems like it came about the same way most of my ideas do

By: Kevin May

Kevin May — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:37:34 +0000

Roger: thanks for coming on to respond to Sam’s question.

You will have set the cat amongst the pigeons there, given that lots of content sites would love to get their hands on the reviews without the advertising everywhere.

Well done, you!

By: Roger Middleton

Roger Middleton — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:33:52 +0000

Thanks Kevin for this piece.

Sam, I’m the founder of RoomAtlas. Glad you like the site and thanks for your question. Unfortunately we can’t share the details of our relationship with TripAdvisor other than to confirm both sides are happy with how we display their reviews.

Best, Roger

By: Sam Daams

Sam Daams — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:18:33 +0000

Nice mashup indeed. I wonder how they got Tripadvisor to agree to the widgets with reviews. I know it’s just TA pages that are popping up, but there’s no ads on them or links back to to TA, which seems very unlike their normal modus operandi. Perhaps it’s through Expedia given the tie-in with their bookings?