myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

I am delighted to announce the launch of an extensive upgrade to the accommodation details pages (menu: Accommodation).

When searching for accommodation, readers can now select to have property details shown in the existing browser window, rather than our traditional method of opening in a new window. Most readers will prefer the default ‘new window’ option because it makes it allows them to view several properties, closing those of no interest and keeping open those that you want to consider further. However, some browser security settings and Internet security products do incorrectly treat these new windows as “pop ups” and prevent them from opening. The choice is yours.

The major differences are in the property ‘details’ section. Instead of a single page, the section has been expanded to a tabbed display of up to seven pages. If we have stayed at reviewed the property, the full review will appear in one of the tabs.

Best of all, all content from the property’s sub-forum will appear in the ‘Reports’ tab. Regrettably this cannot include comment from the ‘General Accommodation’ forum, so there will be no historical reports on any of the smaller property. Reader are asked to post all future accommodation reviews/reports via the new ‘Add Report’ tab of the property to ensure that they can be easily found, rather than posting them in the ‘General Accommodation’ forum. The new ‘Add Report’ form also allows you to grade the property and this grading will shown against your report. This system replaces the old ‘Satisfaction Poll’. The results from the old Satisfaction Poll have formed the starting ranking of each property in the new system.

Finally, you can now email enquiries to the property directly from the final tab of the property details page. The basics of this system have been in use for some weeks, but the new system has taken it a stage further. There are several reasons for using this system rather than simply providing the email address. The primary reason is to monitor email addresses. Any delivery failures will bounce straight back to myTobago – so it is a constant way of monitoring the email addresses we store for accommodation. Sadly, the owners of smaller properties seldom tell us when they change their email address and readers equally seldom inform us when an address turns out to be inactive. Another advantage of the new system is the ability to send the same enquiry to multiple properties. Providing you select the “Remember” option at the bottom of the email, the system will ‘remember’ your message and fill the details in for you the next time you send an email. Please do not abuse this system by blitzing properties with the same message – the system will track how many you send and block abusers from sending further email, or even block them from the site in extreme cases.

Please note that many of these little features will not work if you have disabled cookies on your computer. Cookies are simply little text files stored on your machine and which contain information to ‘personalise’ your browsing experience. Much misunderstood, cookies CANNOT extract information from your site, so are perfectly safe. They can only ‘remember’ information that you have told them – such as the contents of the email form.

Please, please, please tell me if you experience any error messages or incorrect information while using the new accommodation section. If something doesn’t work exactly as you would expect, then it’s probably a flaw and I would REALLY appreciate you letting me know.

It will be some months before all the actual property information for the new section is updated. At the moment, I have only been able to complete the larger properties and those that we know personally. I shall now be produce a form for property owners, asking for all the information shown in the details section. This will be sent to every property owner on the island and the information updated as rapidly as possible. So, my apologies if we have very little information for many properties.

The penultimate paragraph of my announcement above says ...

It will be some months before all the actual property information for the new section is updated.

I am ashamed to admit that rather than a "few months", it has taken me nearly two years to ‘finish’ the accommodation section. However, I can now announce that our listings have been fully updated. We have detailed information on more than 200 of the 346 accommodation properties we know of on Tobago – so the listings are no longer littered with pages of blank properties with little or no information.

I have also introduced some new features that will hopefully enhance the listings and help visitors identify the most suitable property for their holiday accommodation:

1) Reader Satisfaction Rating (RSR): This is the cumulative ‘satisfaction’ award as rated by reader who have stayed at the property. Higher scores mean that the accommodation exceeded expectation. A lower score indicates that it fell short of expectation. Please note that readers cannot award a ‘satisfaction’ vote when posting reports in the forum – reports must be filed in the property’s listing in the main Accommodation section.

2) Enquiry Popularity Index (EPI): Maybe the reader reports don’t tell the whole story and other visitors know something you don’t? Our EPI index enables you to identify the most popular properties – at least from an enquiry point of view. The index is based on enquiries sent during the past four months in each of our six accommodation categories. In each category, the property with the most enquiries is awarded a maximum score of 5 points. The enquiries of all other properties in the same category are measured against this. So, a property with an EPI of 2.5 has had half as many enquiries as the top scorer. As a matter of interest, we forwarded 5,467 accommodation enquiries during the first 6 months of 2007.

3) Excluded Properties: There seems little point in suggesting properties to readers if we have little/no information about the property and/or we don’t have a valid email address. Therefore, our standard lists exclude such properties. Standard lists are those list accessed via text links or the tabs at the top/bottom of the main Accommodation page. If you would like the full lists, including excluded properties, use the Advanced Accommodation Search box and ensure that you do not tick the “No Contact” and/or “No/Little Information” option boxes.

4) Multiple Currencies: Readers have been able to view display rates in the five most popular currencies for some time. However, property rates have previously only been stored in US dollars. This often resulted in exchange anomalies. We now store rates in the property’s ‘local’ currency and undertake conversion to the reader’s selected display currency on the fly, using XE.com mid-market rates which are updated every 2-3 days.

5) Display Preferences: The Advanced Search facility allows readers to select various display options, such as rate currency, sort order, number of results per page and whether to open a new browser window for detailed listings. To keep things simply for less IT-aware readers, these options have not been available for standard listings. However, these options are now stored in a ‘cookie’ and will be applied to all future searches – even standard listings. Use the Advanced Search to set any of these options. They will then be applied to all searches, both Standard and Advanced. To cancel or change a display option, simply reset them in the Advanced Search box.

I am always looking for suggestions on how to improve our listings and particularly value comment if any of the existing features do not work as intended. I can only refine the system with your feedback, so please do not hold back – I NEED YOUR COMMENT.

Finally, if you spot any mistakes in the listings – or contact a property and are quoted rates substantially different from the guide rates quoted here – please contact me.

Otherwise, ENJOY!