Testing 5 hotel websites & travel video guides

How much do photos and videos influence your travel decisions when you book a hotel room? A lot, somewhat, or not at all? I can’t imagine some of you would say not at all — but there are times when all that matters is that the price is right. I’ve been there (but won’t name hotel names). In other cases, all you need to do is match a brand name you trust with the city you’re traveling to.

Here are my reviews of five hotel websites and video guides:

TVTrip — is a hotel video guide that was started by former members of Expedia. The only U.S. cities served are New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and Palo Alto, California. They have some European coverage too.

Tested: When there is a video, the quality is top-notch. If there is not a video, it asks you to vote to request one. All the information you need before booking is clearly organized and easy to find. The videos don’t just give you a tour of the room, they show you the street scene outside. Naturally, I clicked right over to their “Deals” section. I found three-star hotels in Madrid, Munich and Amsterdam for close to $100 per night, including tax.

Trivop — calls itself the first video guide for hotels. The main focus of the site is in Europe, but there are 162 listings for North America. They’ve also started listing hotels in Asia, the Middle East, Central America, South America, Africa and the South Pacific.

Tested: I looked up Las Vegas and found “videos” for four hotels. While the inventory is small, the quality of the presentation is excellent. I watched videos for Paris Las Vegas and the Flamingo and saw clear photos and minimal loading time. However, the ones I saw were slide shows of promotional photos rather than an actual video. When I checked some hotels in Italy, they were indeed edited travel videos. I like that you can narrow your hotel search by star rating, location, price, most-viewed and newest videos.

VibeAgent — is a newer hotel resource that compares hotel deals across 27 hotel websites. They offer user-generated reviews and just added 360-degree virtual tours of hotels.

Tested: I wanted to check out the virtual tours and searched for stylish Vegas hotels in March. The first two videos I found were for Mandalay Bay and Caesars Palace. They seemed out of date, had poor viewing quality and were slow to load. The Mandalay Bay video was promotional and the Caesars video was a slide show of photos rather than actual video. At the end of the Caesars video I saw that the copyright was 2001.

Trip Advisor — The well-known hotel review site also hosts traveler videos now.

Tested: I searched Las Vegas and while there were numerous hotels with traveler reviews, it seemed that every time I clicked a link that said “hotel photos” I was taken to photos from a third-party booking site. Better yet is the section in the right nav-bar called “Traveler Photos & Videos.” These are indeed candid photos and videos from travelers, but you aren’t necessarily guaranteed to see pictures of the actual hotel rooms.

HotelChatter — A popular hotel blog that includes user reviews, photos and video tours. Daily content is often newsworthy.

Tested: I do know the owner of this blog and helped launch it several years ago. That said, what I like about their efforts today is the emphasis on acquiring candid first-person reviews and, more recently, videos. The videos are taken by travelers (versus being professionally produced) and that instills confidence that speaks greater than a written review. Apart from the videos, the content of the hotel news is more fun and snarky than traditional guidebooks. Remember, it is a blog.

Don’t forget: You can also suggest new hotel listings and add your own candid hotel reviews and share your own travel photos and videos on the L.A. Times Travel website. And we hope that you do!

[Editor's note: We moderate all reader submissions, but don't edit or alter them in any way. As long as submissions meet our guidelines for decency and a constructive online community and our Terms of Service, they are approved.]

— Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel Deal Blogger

[Images: tvtrip.com, trivop.com, vibeagent.com, tripadvisor.com, hotelchatter.com]

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 12:33 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Business Travel, Europe, Las Vegas, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.