Having a busy schedule sometimes leaves me little time to do my actual trip planning.
Having a secretary is great for work trips, she takes care of all our bookings and is relentless in getting us the best deals and verifying everything.
But for my upcoming [and short] vacation to Argentina, which includes a one night stop in Amsterdam and meeting up with my brother in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I needed to rely on my travel agent to take care of things.
Now it would be naïve to think that her objectives are 100% aligned with mine, she wants me to take a hotel fast, so I don’t waste too much of her time, she would prefer it wouldn’t be cheap, cause she works on commissions, and she doesn’t always know if the place she is suggesting is actually worth staying at.
This is where search comes along, while on the phone with her, she reads me some options she got from her booking system, my initial request was CHEAP for Amsterdam, I am only there for 12 hours (an over night stay) for a short meeting, and this is a busy time in Amsterdam with many conferences taking place making room availability low.
I search for the hotels she gives me and quickly get Trip Advisor as top spot for that hotel name…
Not getting the hotel’s website signals that this hotel did not really understand the importance of search marketing.
Secondly, the review from Trip Advisor was horrible, some of the cynics left some comments that leave little room for consideration, in short “DON’T GO THERE”.
Next…
My agent (on the phone) gives me another hotel, I search and find TripAdvisor.com again at first place (The actual hotel had an AdWords Ad), but I decided ill read the review first.
Review looks good, highly recommended, a bit pricey, but my agent is pushing now, cause she doesn’t think ill get a room elsewhere.
Trip Advisor does not give me the option for this hotel of reserving online, and there is no link to the hotel website…
So I am back to Google for the link to the hotel… Hotel looks nice but no online reservation system, so I cant check room price.
I tell my agent on the phone to book.

Now I am sure someone is going to develop a virtual agent that does that for us, in the meanwhile…. Guess ill need both my agent and search.