If you ever see a hotel that has a website and it looks like they have used a website template to build their website, donĄŻt book a room there. If you travel often and stay at small hotels and bed and breakfasts, you probably look at a lot of websites before you book a room. If some websites look the same as others, like they have the same graphics etc; then chances are the hotels you are looking at have used web templates to build their websites.
Website templates are the true giveaway of a business that is lazy, unknowledgeable, and even dishonest. In case you didnĄŻt know, these web templates are pre-constructed for generic lodging establishments to include text and graphics. This means that the picture of the hotel and the rooms may have come with the template and not even be the pictures of the hotel or rooms at all!
Have you ever shown up to a hotel - only to find that the pictures in the hard copy of the brochure that you picked up at the rest station on the highway has pictures of the hotel when it was first built twenty years ago? It is not a pleasant experience.
There may be peeling paint, water stains, old lumpy mattresses, and unsavory characters lurking about. If you notice that all of the furniture is bolted down, and scurrying cockroaches when you turn on the light, you may want to go somewhere else. But what if the nearest place is fifty miles away? You may have to keep driving, oh weary traveler.
An old brochure is one thing, but imagine showing up to a bed and breakfast where the pictures are just downloaded from the Internet. You may be staying in a bed and breakfast where the proprietor is an axe murderer.
If you look up their name, you may find a website with a whole different theme of torture and dismemberment that takes place in the basement. Most axe murderers are creepy forty year old males who live alone or with their mother (alive or dead) so you may want to hightail it the other way if this kind of person greets you at the front desk. Also, beware of little old ladies with dead husbands and lots of cats who offer you tea before you go to your room. It usually contains poison.
As you can see, all of this can ruin your vacation, which is why you should never book a room that uses a website template to build their website. A lot of these templates are free and also come with free hosting. This means that the person who publishes these websites doesnĄŻt have to pay money for the website and doesnĄŻt even have to have a legitimate business.
By the way, if you are one of these creepy people who builds a free website using a free website template, donĄŻt get any ideas about creating a website and luring innocent tourists to their bloody and painful death when they should be enjoying their vacation.
As well, if you are a tourist, only stay at hotels that have a legitimate website where they spent the money to hire a photographer and a web master. You can usually tell if this has been done because there will be some sort of credits to that effect. Always remember, if someone has to use a website template to create their website, they are probably a criminal.
By Guy Bolt
Published: 11/15/2010