15 years
I was just looking at this site and they have a hostel map also:
http://www.jugendherberge-sachsen.de/de/jugendherbergen_finden/index.php
Hostel Booking Engines and Hostel Maps
Internet Marketing
Minihostels just launched a maps feature on their new site:
http://www.minihostels.com/
All booking engines should have map features.
The way hostel booking engines organize destinations makes it difficult to plan trips. Here's an example from one booking engine:
The average traveler isn't going to know where most of those locations are. Interactive maps would make it easier to plan routes. Hostels.com has always had a map, but it only works up to a certain point. You can't view individual hostels on the map. Minihostels has taken a step in the right direction. I hope they develop it even further.
Minihostels' new site is well done...
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15 years
True. Hostelworld could easily do that, they have all the hostels on Google maps anyway.
15 years
True. Hostelworld could easily do that, they have all the hostels on Google maps anyway.
Hostelworld has the data on their route planner on Facebook.
Hostelbookers maps:
http://www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/england/london/map
There's no way to zoom out of a view of just a city. For example, view a single map of the UK and zoom in on London, and then zoom out and view Manchester.
GOMIO has city maps that are similar in functionality to Hostelbookers:
http://www.gomio.com/hostels/europe/germany/berlin/search.htm
TFThostels.com has this feature though:
(tfthostels.com is a very innovative site)
I think drilling into locations from a map is one way that users want to find destinations. I think the maps should be prominent on the front pages, like how it is on Hostels.com but with more functionality. Another navigation method that I think would benefit from development on the booking engines is the search boxes, but that's another post...
15 years
EDIT: Hostelworld has the route planner feature on their home page, but it requires login so it's not really a site navigation feature.
15 years
hiusa.com has a maps feature also. I think all booking engines should have this kind of feature because it helps backpackers who aren't familiar with the geography to plan a route.
Choose a state:
Get a list of cities that have hostels:
Click on a city and get a list of hostels in the city:
15 years
Well, that would make my job so much easier!
Most of m y guests come to front desk asking for places to visit within argentina...I mean, we have forest, mountains, desserts, glaciars! I have so many places to offer, so many hostels to recommend (andd that takes time of browsing websites, communicating with them, getting reservations, blah blah).
I´m not complaining, coz I really love what I do, but we are just starting and gathering information was a hassle!
There is no website (at least from what I´ve seen) that has maps to plan ahead for Argentina...
I love this site, I spend a lot of time reading you guys! Your like my "all time, all favorite" guidebook!
14 years
I just discovered one of the best examples so far over on Independent Hostels Guide.
You can choose a map by what you're looking for:
They are Google Maps where you can find a hostel by location:
Zooming in shows exactly where the hostels are:
I wish all hostel websites could be searched this easily.
14 years
Awesome. I really wonder why none of the booking engines has a decent map search. They should think more about the user-friendliness of their sites instead of marketing bullshit.
14 years
I really wonder why none of the booking engines has a decent map search.
It would make travel planning much easier. To plan a hostelling trip, just look at the map and connect the dots...
14 years
Interesting post, we are working on a interactive map that will allow drilling down to specific properties, it won't be finished for our initial booking engine launch (about 3 weeks) but will be ready for RC2 release of the booking engine approximately October.
I have read through so many posts on this forum, so much negative stuff it is not funny, but some is quite useful when you are building a new hostel booking site. One of the observations is advanced functionality is not just a 5 minute job, now I am not talking HW or HB that have huge technology budgets but independents like us.
We have one booking engine almost finished to perform basic booking and review, then we are finishing off the support modules for it for advanced searching, related properties, viewed properties etc etc. Then there is the map, and a couple of other functionality's.
From there we move into RC3 and more functionality (not mentioning what) but the point is just to get to RC3 do you know how many hours of programming is required?
Then for what we are doing for the RC3 release is heavily time consuming and as such bleeding expensive, and once you have done all this and incorporated amazing amounts of advanced functionality you find some of it is not used (only guessing there)
We still have 3 more booking engines to build for our site, if you want to launch a brand that can not only compete with HW and HB but to offer more the investment is huge.
By the time we have all 4 of our booking capabilities finished, we estimate the hardcore development would not stop for another 2 years just to take advantage of all the technology available. That sort of commitment is not difficult for HW and HB but for a new independent brand you find your gonads firmly stapled to the table.
I read allot of why don't they do this or that would be better and they could do that - functionality takes hundreds and hundreds of hours and thousands and thousands of dollars...
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