Listen up, Wandering Educators! I've got a GREAT resource to share with you. Always looking for the best hotel while you're traveling? Look no more - a fantastic website called Gekko has the solution. Have a favorite hotel? Tell Gekko, as well as your destination, and they will recommend a similar hotel to you. It takes the guesswork (and hours and hours of scouring reviews on the internet) out of finding the right hotel when you travel. We were lucky enough to sit down and talk with Dan Pilkington, Community Manager at Gekko, about the site, the Gekko algorithm, locations, and more. Here's what he had to say...
WE: Please tell us about your site, Gekko.com...
DP: In a nutshell, Gekko.com makes it easy to find the right hotel for any trip. Gekko has a clever algorithm which twins hotels with a similar style and atmosphere. Tell Gekko a hotel that you love anywhere in the world and we will show you similar hotels in all of the world’s major cities.
You can then make a personal shortlist of hotels and compare them side by side to make sure you’re making the right decision. Finally, you can compare hotel rates for your chosen dates on a selection of the major travel sites including Booking.com and Expedia. You can then book your hotel with your chosen site in a couple of clicks.
Try finding a hotel you’ll love on Gekko
WE: What was the genesis of Gekko?
DP: Gekko’s founder Dino was getting frustrated that he couldn’t find the right hotel without hours of research and constant switching between different travel sites. That’s when he had the idea for Gekko, an independent site that gives you personalised hotel recommendations based on what you love. Research from Google shows that the average user visits 33 sites over 32 days when they are searching for a hotel which demonstrates the problem the Gekko solves.
Before the Gekko algorithm was devised, we surveyed over 8,000 hotel customers across Europe and the US to make sure we knew exactly what people looked for in hotels. This was then used to create hotel twinning, alongside a team of experts personally profiling the 130,000 hotels we have on Gekko.
WE: What can readers find on your site?
DP: As well as getting personalised hotel recommendations, Gekko also gives its members a place to save their favourite hotels. We call this the Address Book. You can share your Address Book and even ‘follow’ other people’s Address Books (a little bit like you follow people on Twitter), so you can see which hotels they recommend whenever you want. We think this is a great way of getting groups of friends to share their hotel recommendations between each other without having to write long emails.
WE: What locations does Gekko cover?
DP: Gekko currently has over 130,000 hotels in 184 countries. The Gekko twinning algorithm now works in the world’s top 100 cities, so if you are looking for a familiar-seeming hotel in a new city, we will find a hotel that’s right for you. We are adding new cities and hotels every week.
WE: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
DP: Take a look at the Gekko blog for top tips in the world’s best cities. You can also follow Gekko on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook for Gekko updates on hotel recommendations, hotel deals and travel tips.'
WE: Thanks so very much, Dan! We highly recommend Gekko to our readers.
Photos courtesy and copyright Gekko