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Property Type Filter in BDC Search Results (Hotels's B&B's and more)

I often use an "incognito" or private window when doing competition research on BDC's regular website to show how far down the list my property is listed and compare price, amenities etc..  Not sure if it a change worldwide or not but recently when doing searches for properties in my area on BDC regular website I noticed the Property Type Filter is now quite often grouped as "Hotel's, B&B's and more" when it used always allow the potential guest to select Hotels only, or B&B's only, or Vacation Homes only etc?   It is not grouped everytime I search.

This puts us at a disadvantage when we are grouped with all property types the potential guest has to look at least 5 times as many properties rather than just being able to look for only B&B's.

Any comments?

 


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Katerinka12 5 years ago

I have noticed that this filter does not work properly or Booking intentionally adds competitors. Exception only if property listed themselves incorrectly.

As for the guests they are really so uneducated and especially about B&B. Recently we had conversation here on the forum what is B&B and people said so different things. B&B to my opinion is the worse filter ever.

As for us, our filter suppose to be more simple. Its Apartments vs Hotels. And yet I doubt if people do use "property type" filter. As some people expectations go far beyond any filters...

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Jessie & Jay (… 5 years ago

Hi Katerinka12,

Could not find the previous post on "What is a B&B" so let me digress a bit. Traditionally in Canada, a B&B indicated a Bed and Breakfast. Basically, you stayed in the hosts home, had a bedroom to sleep in and breakfast was served to you. I believe that AirBnB has created some confusion, even though the founders model was a bed and breakfast model using a air matress in their livingroom, hence the name AIrBnB. I believe most of the listings on AIrBnB now are for whole homes, condo's, or suites with kitchens.

I know when I talk to our guests the common theme is that that generally speaking hotel guests are different than B&B guests. Hotel guests typically pick Hotel's first and B&B guests pick B&B's first when searching. Therefore, lumping the Property Type's together is a disservice to the person performing the search and it also buries us in the filtered, yet expanded, search results that are presented to the potential guest. Now they have to visually sort through the property types to identify only B&B's.

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Katerinka12 5 years ago

Jessie & Jay,

https://partnerhelp.booking.com/hc/en-gb/community/posts/360004369427-What-is-the-difference-between-a-hotel-and-a-bed-and-breakfast-and-a-guest-house-

I have checked again what kind of filter it shows on my side. It's very clear "bed and breakfasts". It doesn't show me hotels as well in search results.

Mixing hotels and b&bs is ridiculous, and disadvantage for Booking as it will lead to many cancelations.

Airbnb played a major role in bringing attention to B&B and make it popular. Though there are whole homes, as you said, they will be forever "airbeds". The whole system and Airbnb nation demands the palace at the price of airbed. And fully loaded breakfast, free of charge of course :)

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Jessie & Jay (… 5 years ago

Hi Katerinka12,

Thanks for providing the link to Hotel vs B&B post!

The grouping of "Hotels, B&B's and more" does not always show up when doing searches but it just started showing up randomly in the last few days. Sometimes all Property type individual filters are initially available then when I click on an something like "Private Bathroom" filter then when it is applied the next screen shows the property type grouping "Hotels, B&B's and more". Having said all that I just tried again and this time the property type filter never grouped but stayed individual. So I tried again and after entering my location, dates and number of guests the following appeared:

And when I scroll down the filters to the page to the Property Filters I see this:

When this happens as you can see the prospective guest cannot filter to see only B&B's. I guess I should report my concerns to BDC support?

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Katerinka12 5 years ago

Everything looks great on my side.

I suggest you write to Booking and attach your screenshot.

As I can understand their logic for grouping is to make list shorter as it will be long to scroll. For educated person there should be no problem to make sure what property type he books. Especially your group is in favorable position as I can see "hotels only" immediately. Unlike my group is Apartments + Vacation houses, which are completely opposite, as how can you group apartment near aiport in overcrowded capital with vacation houses?

What exact problem are you experiencing with guests? Do they expect hotel when they arrive? Do they expect hosts not to stay there? Do they expect polishing their shoes? Even if BDC will ungroup, it will not fight the main problem - uneducated guests with Napoleon disorder and unjustifiable demands. So, lets see what is exactly your problem and try to solve it.