New hotel review site launches with independent, expert reviews

June 24, 2009 | Hospitality Industry

In stealth mode since its founding in March 2008, Oyster Hotel Reviews has spent the past 15 months dispatching a staff of experienced journalists to anonymously stay in hotels,investigate them methodically and in depth, and take hundreds of photos so that readers can see the hotel before they go.

Oyster Hotel Reviews maintains hundreds of original reviews, and more than 50,000 undoctored, original photos of the hotels of New York, Miami, Aruba, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. Many more locations will be added to the site in the months ahead, including Las Vegas in July 2009.

The Internet is overloaded with thousands of hotels and resorts who misrepresent themselves, via exaggeration and even outright misrepresentation on the Web. The leading travel booking sites simply recycle photos and property descriptions they receive from the hotels themselves. And to this cacophony of untrustworthy claims, anonymous user reviews can add sometimes biased reviews leading even great hotels to receive one star ratings and vice versa.

“Quite simply, travelers today have no reliable source to rely on for hotel information, and hotel reviews. Reading hotel websites, and anonymous reviews, people can’t discover the truth. There are tremendous differences between what our reporters bring back and the marketing distortions of the hotel industry,” said Elie Seidman, founder and CEO of Oyster Hotel Reviews. “The vast majority of hotel descriptions and photos circulating on the Internet originates in the hotel’s own marketing departments and gets reproduced over and over as legitimate truth—but it’s often highly misleading. By pulling back the sheets and revealing what you’re really going to get, Oyster Hotel Reviews will fundamentally change the way people make hotel decisions.”

“We understand that hotel stays are one of the few things you can’t try before you buy—and usually the most expensive part of travel expenses. And in these times, with dollars and time ever more precious, who wants to get duped? Because of this, Oyster Hotel Reviews is determined to act as an unbiased consumer advocate and create the most detailed, accurate, and comprehensive hotel review anywhere - online or off,” added Seidman.

Oyster Hotel Reviews Hotel investigators experience every hotel they review. They visit and stay in the hotel anonymously. They sleep in the beds, swim in the pools, eat the food, interview the guests, and shoot hundreds of photos. Every review looks at service, design, dining, cleanliness, nearby nightlife, and even the thread count of the sheets on the beds. In addition, the site considers the specific needs of different types of travelers, including families with children, honeymooners, business travelers, golfers, pet owners, and those on limited budgets. To assure that
consumers get apples-to-apples comparisons, Oyster Hotel Reviews reporters evaluate hotels on 70 different quantitative and qualitative dimensions.