Last Friday I have spent a bit of time with Steven Potter from HotelMap.com (what a great domain name!), part of LondonTown.com to take me through their fantastic mapping solutions they bring to Venues and Even organizers.
In the heart of London Leicester Square, LondonTown has really what you need to get you the WOW factor when you enter their meeting room: big plasma screen, huge speakers with state of the art HIFI playing some lounge music and different Japanese collectors toys and a huge man sculpture.
Then comes Steven Potter who hands over his business card with no title on it. Who is he then? Find out at the end of the post...
So back to business...what HotelMap is doing than others don't? Who want to compete with the big guys like Google Maps, Virtual Earth and others when you try to make a great map.
Well the guys behind HotelMap - after careful consideration - decided to start a London map from scratch and employed designers to draw their own map that matters for their customers (essentially event organizers like Bafta).
The results are really really good. Not only do you get to see clearly the details of every street in London but more importantly you can see which hotels are available on a particular date and at what price these hotels are available thanks to direct contracts hotels have with LondonMap sister company LondonTown.
Step 1: you need a venue and its postcode. Let's say you have a concert at Royal Albert Hall and you need a hotel nearby.
Step 2: you can manually change the point of reference
Step 3: HotelMap is asking you if you are organizing the event at this venue
Step 4: Create your account to get the map or fill your credentials
Step 5: you get a unique URL to send the map to your guests, friends and so on
This is the map I created around Royal Albert Hall.
HotelMap asks you for check in and check out dates + occupancy and then you have all hotels available wit prices.
Note that the map takes almost the full screen of your desk top and you can navigate from it, change your hotels preferences on the right side (price, occupancy...) and on the left you can show different point of interests like Tube station, Car parks and so on. Also you can initiate a chat with a person on the left side if you have any questions (the service is available from 8am until 10pm. !!!)
As you would expect, you can book from the map in one click by just selecting one hotel available on the map and you open up a pop up box that takes you through LondonTown website.
I was really amazed by the details you can find on these maps and I think it is so easy that my great grand mother could use this. The London map was created by LondonMarketing team of 50 experts and it shows...
You can also notice that HotelMap doesn't feature any ads or sponsored links of any kind. The business model is more around the commission they will get if you make a hotel booking with their hotel partners. And not they don't take money upfront. You will pay your hotel bill at the check out with the hotel directly.
So if you have any friends, colleagues who get lost in London to find you, create a map for them!
Next stage would be maybe an application on iphone, blackberry?
After my 2 hours meeting with Steven, he takes me down to their reception and thank me for the meeting. I am asking him for how long he's with LondonTown. 18 years he responds. To which I say he's very loyal to this company and that it must treats him well. Big smile on his face and off I go.
I discovered by "googling" his name on the Internet that Steven is the owner and CEO of LondonMarketing/LondonTown/HotelMap!
Well done Steven. Next time we will meet to discover how you created your venture.
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