Picky Traveler? TripKick Rates Individual Hotel Rooms
Jason Kincaid
31 comments »
It’s been a long day. You’ve finally gotten to your hotel room, and the only thing you can think of is the twelve hour snoozefest you’re about to enjoy. Just as you’re about to nod off, you hear it: the slow, metallic squeal of the ice machine next-door that will test your sanity for the rest of the night.
TripKick, a new travel review site that launched today, hopes to put an end to nights like these. Instead of the general hotel reviews found on sites like TripAdvisor, TripKick goes the extra mile, offering reviews on every individual room.
The site’s founders have spent the last year analyzing the individual rooms of over 250 hotels, mainly located in major metropolitan areas. This impressive feat was made possible by a trend in hotel architecture: hotel rooms typically vary within a floor, but are consistent moving vertically up a building (for example, room 105 and 205 would be the same, but 102 would differ).
Many rooms have been documented with an extreme level of detail, listing the size of the room, any possible noise concerns, and even the view a guest can expect from the balcony. Users can ask the site to recommend a room based on this criteria. Each hotel also receives an overall review, along with a listing of information such as the availability of WiFi. Visitors to the site are encouraged to leave their own reviews, and they can request for a hotel to be added to the database if it isn’t there already.
This all seems pretty useful, so why hasn’t it been done before? The reason is simple: there currently isn’t a way to book a particular room without calling the hotel and requesting it. Unlike airlines, which have computerized systems for seat selection, picking hotel rooms is still stuck in the dark ages of customer service. TripKick hopes that their site will spur the hotel industry to change its ways, but this could be a long ways off.
As it stands now, TripKick is going to be fighting an uphill battle. Traveling is exhausting enough as it is - many people will likely view this as just one more thing to deal with. And the site’s database of reviews is miniscule in comparison to giants like TripAdvisor. But for business travelers who frequently stay in hotels, the site could prove to be a handy resource in the ceaseless battle against noisy ice machines.
Checked it out - great site!
nice. can’t wait to spend 2 hours researching hotel and 6 hours researching rooms. thaz the meat in traveling.
You can’t usually reserve an individual room at a hotel — even if you call and request it, there’s no guarantee they’ll have it for you.
Wow - what a gutsy idea. I hope it works out for these guys.
cool site. will use.
I will definately recommend this site to my clients. They surely want the best room for their honeymoon
Unique offerings, Beautifully executed.
Goodbye Ice Machine; Hello Room with View!
Ugh, I’ve had to deal with this problem (horrid rooms). Pretty useful stuff and good looking site.
I’m not sure individual room ratings are all that valued by customers, but maybe I just haven’t felt the pain as much as others.
I wonder if they screen for this http://tinyurl.com/yuxfx7
Eeeeww!
Seem to have put in a lot of hard work and manual efforts.
They have created a edge and a niche area for themselves, so that the me-too ones dont come knocking to the door soon.
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Combine this with TripIt and maybe some other travel tools and make it easy for the user.
Interesting idea. I can see it being the most useful with hotel rooms that are unique or strange — like at B&Bs or somewhere like the Ace Hotel in Seattle where the rooms vary significantly.
Amazing amount of data to collect, but seems like a great research tool. It is somewhat like seatguru.com, however it seems less common to request specific rooms (though I guess this gives more reason to do so)
It’s a great idea and a really nice looking site. It’s a good way to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Having worked in hospitality, I think most hotels will gladly assign guests to a particular room, if it’s available.
Creative new introduction to the travel website arena; I think it’ll be particularly useful to travelers such as myself. I never know what to ask for when I’m checking in, hopefully this will help.
this is the stupidest idea i’ve seen in a while.
one more way people can over-plan their travels. that’s not what travel is about.
and if i’m on a business trip and the room is next the ice machine, i call the concierge and get a new room! are people helpless? you’d rather spend half an hour on this site analyzing each room??
suerte.
@Tom: All very well if you check in at 4pm, but what about 1am when you have to be up at 6:30 for a meeting?
The site does not take very much time to use at all, especially if you know which hotel you are staying at.
TripKick.com also includes a very easy-to-follow, on-the-go print-out (check the “Compare Rooms” tab). You can take this with you and show the concierge when checking in.
If you are going to be spending money on your travels, why not take it seriously and get the most bang for your buck?
Great site! Clean and well thought-out. Can’t wait to see where it goes. The world is full of hotels.
This is such a great website, I love the pictures
its probably the best I have seen yet
great idea!!!!!!
THIS IS EXTREMELY INNOVATIVE AND SUCH A GREAT TOOL! I WILL 100% USE THIS SITE AND IT WILL HELP MY TRAVELS A GREAT DEAL. WHAT A SMART IDEA! THE SITE IS VERY PROFFESSIONAL AND IT LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF HARD WORK AND TIME WENT INTO THE RESEARCH! AWESOME!!
What a great idea! This is one of the best web sites I have seen
in a long time, very well done, I will definately use this for my
many travels!
hey guys,
this awesome. so great it worked out that well. can’t wait till you work worldwide…we do not have such things in europe…very nice and helpful site—
great job!!!
I’m sorry — but what happened to being a smart and vocal traveler? When you check in, if you see you’re next to the elevator shaft or ice/vending areas, kindly request to change rooms. When you make this kind of room change request, front desk folks gather that you are a savvy traveler and will give you the best room they know of in your rate category — or an upgrade. This even works for Priceline rooms, though you have to really befriend the desk agent at check-in. In both cases, kindness always prevails in getting perks.
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