TouristLink – Travelers Social Network

15 thoughts on “TouristLink – Travelers Social Network”

1. 1. My first impression of your home page was a feeling of refreshment and relaxation. Nice choice of colors. I like the fact that the page was clear cut and simple, yet attractive.

   2. Site navigation is easy and not complicated. Attractions are easy to locate, and the pages load quickly.

   3. I like the way everything is presented in clear cut terms. The tabs menu is a nice feature.

   4. There could be a category for kids.

2. 1. I really like the homepage. The clouds are nice but what I really like are the monuments sitting on the map. The layout is clean and the color scheme is great. However, I do not like the cartoon traveler; the site has a nice and classy feel until i see the cartoon guy and am a little put off. He is blunt in comparison and I didn’t immediately realize what his sleeping bag was (I was wondering why he had wings.)

   2.  Next to “most popular” and “accommodation” are arrows pointing down; from what I have found is that that usually means a drop-down menu will appear underneath. I was waiting for it but it never happened. Navigation is pretty easy. I thought it was a bit repetitive to have a “most popular” option in the menu and to have them listed on the left.  I like that there is a map to choose locations but also other options like waterfalls. On the menu I would list “discussion” and “members” last. 

   3. On the Everest deal where the itinerary and description are listed there is some overlap of titles onto body text so I can’t read the first part of 2 lines. Maybe it’s my browser? I use Chrome.  I am assuming the price is for one person… I don’t think this is something I would be interested in but does seem like neat option.

   4. I keep seeing “sign up” but besides the discussion am not sure why you need to. I would like that to be clear- what are the benefits of joining?

3. 1. On first glance, you have a very nice home page. I like the vivid colors and the great mix of images and explanatory text. The smiling backpacker and distant landmarks immediately communicate what the site is about, and when you scroll down, the beautiful photos of exotic locations instantly attract attention. My overall feeling is that the site is both professional and fun, and that’s a good thing.
    
   Likes
   –The bright colors and appealing images.
    
   –The logo and tag line. They instantly communicate the site’s purpose.
    
   –The three selling points below the photographic images of upcoming organized trips. Again, they clearly and concisely communicate what TouristLink does.
    
   Dislikes
   –It took me a second glance to see that the photographs are actually guided trips that you’re trying to market to visitors. I’d like to see these moved under the three selling points so that the selling points can be seen above the fold. First you want to communicate what your site is for. Then you want to sell people on it. However, since marketing guided tours to visitors seems to be a big part of your site, I would add a selling point that says, “Join Our Trips” with a sentence or two summarizing the guided tours you offer.
    
   –The big, empty white space between your top five list and the “Explore World” section at the bottom of the page.
    
   2. Well, the tabs were easy enough to find and click through, but it wasn’t that easy to find destinations, unfortunately. You have a search box at the upper right of every page, but when I typed in several major cities and landmarks and clicked the eyeglass, absolutely nothing happened. Then I went to “Guide” and was surprised to see that you have a list of popular destinations in the left margin and destination categories at the bottom of the page, but neither of these lists is alphabetical. Since they’re not alphabetical, it’s time-consuming to search for what you want. Next I tried searching by simply clicking the map, but when I clicked on “Europe,” all I got was a page on Belarus. Finally, I tried clicking “Europe” on the list of continents across the top of the page. This returned a lot of European destinations by order of popularity. But what if I already know the destination that interests me and want to find it quickly? Why don’t I have the option to sort this list alphabetically so I can find what I want right away?
    
   3. I’ll go through my likes and dislikes:
    
   Likes
   –The beautiful photos of Mt. Everest and its environs.
    
   –The fact that I can get in touch with the tour guide to ask questions prior to the trip.
    
   –The fact that I can see profiles of other members going on the trip. One of the daunting things about signing up for group tours is that you never know who you’re going to be spending so much uninterrupted time with. But I like that TouristLink provides a way to connect with the other people in your tour group before the trip so that you can find out something about them and hopefully figure out if you’d feel comfortable traveling with them for an extended period.
    
   –The live support.
    
   Dislikes
   –At this point, I don’t feel like I have much confidence in your tour groups since I know so little about your business. There are lots of businesses that have been running tours for a very long time and have excellent reputations in the travel industry. I’m not sure why I would want to take a chance on yours, especially since adventure travel is an expensive and potentially risky undertaking. It especially bothers me that your itinerary doesn’t list specific hotels or airlines. How can I be confident in the quality of your accommodations and the safety of your travel arrangements if you’re not more specific about them?
    
   –When I click “Questions? Ask me,” nothing happens.
    
   –The first few lines of the itinerary have some spacing problems. Also, there are some grammatical errors–run-on sentences, missing apostrophes, and so on–throughout the itinerary.
    
   –The profiles, both for the tour guide and the site members, have some issues with text placement. For instance, in the tour guide’s profile, notice that “Gender” and “Relationship Status” are on the right, but “Male” and “Married” are on the left.
    
   4. I’m going to go through some other pages of the site that I haven’t already addressed:
    
   Most Popular
   On the home page, this appears to include a drop-down menu, but when I hovered over or clicked on the down arrow, nothing else appeared.
    
   When I opened the page itself, I was presented with a list of popular destinations. I clicked one and then got another list of popular attractions in that location, so I chose one. This led me to a destination profile, which had a small blurb about the location, a photo, a feed of recent visitors to the page, member reviews, and a list of nearby attractions. Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed with this. I’ve seen other travel sites that have a good deal more information and also the social networking element, so I don’t feel like yours has a lot more to offer at this point.
    
   Also, a minor point, but why do you have a link that says, “Is this your property? Click here to claim this page”?
    
   Finally, you have a button that says, “Show your expertise, be an Ambassador.” What’s an Ambassador? What’s this all about? When I click it, nothing happens.
    
   Discussion
   Looks like this operates as a feed of what people are saying about the destination most recently viewed. I was expecting a more extensive message board or forum, but ok.
    
   Members
   Seems to be a basic search page to look up members by name. But this wouldn’t work so well if I’m trying to make new friends. How about a more advanced search option so that I can look up members by gender, age, hometown, and travel interests?
    
   Accommodation
   Looks like it’s going to have another drop-down menu, which again doesn’t work.
    
   The page itself lists accommodations by popularity. But unless I’m just looking for a really cool hotel to stay at, this isn’t going to help me. Like most people probably do, I choose a place I want to go first, and then I choose a hotel to stay at while I’m there. I think what you need to do with this is provide a search feature so visitors can browse most popular accommodations by location.
    
   The accommodation profiles are somewhat more detailed than the destination profiles. However, I can tell you that I’d never just book a reservation without visiting a hotel’s web site first, so I really think you should list the hotel’s URL in the profile. On the other hand, I like that you list “Recent Events,” “Nearby Things to Do,” and other “Nearby Places to Stay,” although I do wish you’d change “Recent Events” to “Upcoming Events” since people usually care about what’s on the agenda for the future, not what already happened.
    
   Deals
   I’m confused by this page. Previously, I was on a page for a Greek spa, and now the “Deals” page automatically says, “Greece Upcoming Deals,” but the deals listed aren’t in Greece. These appear to be the adventure travel options that were advertised on the home page, including the Mt. Everest trip that I commented on earlier.
    
   Overall Impression
    I love your home page. It sucks me right in and piques my interest about TouristLink. After five or ten seconds on your site, it promises to be professional yet fun.
    
   Unfortunately, I don’t feel like the rest of your site lives up to this first impression. A lot of it seems “unfinished.” There are drop-down menus that don’t drop down, links that don’t lead anywhere, text with spacing issues. It’s hard to find things I’m interested in because categories and destinations aren’t listed alphabetically, and accommodations aren’t listed by location. Your default listings are by popularity, but that’s of secondary concern to me when I’m planning a trip.
    
   Although I like the idea of making friends with other people who might potentially become travel partners, there are other web sites out there that already focus on trip planning and travel niche social networking. Right now, I’m not sure why I should use your site as opposed to their more established sites.
    
   Finally, it seems to me that the way you really intend to earn revenue here is by signing people up for tours. That’s fine, but if you want to position yourself as an adventure travel operation, you need to really instill confidence in your business. A lot of people are very cautious when traveling abroad. They want to be absolutely sure that any tour they participate in is aboveboard. They want to know what the accommodations will be like, which airlines they’ll be traveling on, what kind of gear they’ll need to bring, who the guides are. They want to see reviews and testimonials from other travelers, and they want to see that you’re affiliated with or approved by various travel industry organizations. As it is now, I don’t feel like TouristLink provides that level of assurance.
    
   Anyway, some of these are minor points. You can easily clean up the glitches on the site. But I think you really need to focus on 1) finding a unique selling point that differentiates TouristLink from other web sites in its category and 2) establishing your credibility in the adventure travel industry.

4. I like the idea of this website. I think a picture of a real person or group of people, rather than the comic strip type character  would go along better with the other pictures which makes me want to book a trip.  I noticed one price was in RS and the rest seem to be in $ and it might be better to have all prices in 1 currency (or an approximate for the ones that are in another currency Ex. 19,990 rs, ~ $999)
   I would like a more detailed description of what the website is for at the top of the Home page.
   Maybe move the Find what interests you, Meet Traveling Companions… toward the top?
   I like the categories under Most Popular. I noticed “Join Our Trips” is covering some of the categories and you also can’t click on those categories it is covering.
   A Home link would be helpful in the toolbar at the top of each page.  It took me a minute to find how to get back to Home.
   Love the Members link, but it was slow to upload.
   I think the sidebar with the ads and popular destinations would be better on the right with the main purpose of the page on the right.  A dividing line or different colors would also be good in separating those areas.
   On the Guide page, it might be helpful to have the name of the place on the picture rather than to have to scroll over it.
   Accommodations – When I go to this page, it looks like you can search accommodations by location (North America…) but if you click on a location, it goes to Tourist Attractions for that area.  Would be good if you can search accommodations by area.  I think this link needs work
   Discussion This is a great place to ask questions and get feedback about different trips
   A more logical order would be to have Members and Discussions at the end of the toolbar and maybe in a different color.
    
    

5. I

   1. What is your view of the home page? How does the site come across?
   Any suggestions for improvement?
   Your homepage is bold, vibrant and exciting. All of the graphics are clear and fresh looking with nothing out of place.  Your sites name goes perfectly with how your page looks. You have just enough pizazz on the homepage without over and under doing it. I like that you have a three way system of telling what your site is about. At the top of the page you give quick content, then a larger discription then at the bottom of the homepage you break it down in three columns, well done! The site comes across great and certainly makes a user exciting about planning a trip and finding companions. I would suggest not having the two join now button at the bottom of the screen if they are not going to work. I tried clicking on them and nothing worked. There also seems to be an explores button at the bottom but it is not shown all of the way but I was still able to click on it. I like that I was able to clink on the places wher your site has been highlighted. Lots of sights have then listed but you can see what the content is.  I like that I would be able to sign in using Facebook and your site. I would like to see either a touch more space between your tab titles or put little lines of distinction between each one. When you scroll over the most popular  tab it drops down and some of the info is hidden under the join out trips sign. I would suggest letting it fall in front of it or breaking up that tap and it two.
   

   2. Please comment on the site Navigation? Is it easy to find different
   attractions?
   It was very easy to navigate your site. I was a little unsure if that when I picked a city how would I be able to see different aspects like attraction and the like. So I scrolled over to the most poular tab and click on a content from the list and I could find exactly what I was looking for. That was a little confusing but once I got going is was easy peasy from there on. There needs to be some type of navigantion direction so that people know where to press to move around your site. I really like that you have a search tab for quick searching. The guide page was really nice and easy to read and follow. I like that you gave a little background history, a map to show location and popular places within the country chosen. I appreciate that you took a furhter step by allow them to clicked on their by taking the navigation further. At the bottom of the guide page on the map I see a box that has the content which I was looking for but then it has several other bubble listing other attractions in the surrounding area. Being that the bubbles are not list it seems counter productive to put them there. On the other if I could click on hotel they would pop up of the map that would be useful rather than just having a hugh population of titless bubbles. The discussion page was easy to follow and I liked that I could leave a comment at the top of page and without logging in. The members pages was easy navigate and I like that you put a searh bar for easy searching and that you have an alphabetical orderd list.

   3. We just launched our group deal feature. These can be seen
   highlighted on the home page.
   Here is an example of a group deal page:
   https://www.touristlink.com/nepal/everest-base-camp.html
   What do you like or dislike about it?
   This was very nicely set up and I like that you put detail descriptions about the trip listed right on the page. I would have like to seen information about the actual a person would be staying in. Like with anything there is a safty aspect of who the host is and how is the package put together. Who is able to become a travel host and what are the guidelines? Is the travel host compensated in any fashion? When someone is ready for a trip and pay there money where is it sent to? The travel host seems to be a travel agent so assuring customers that they are “safe and secure” would something that I would like to see more information about. I would also like to if there are any booking limits and or days when booking will no longer be taken because of accomodations things of the like? I see that on two of your deals your have the same travel host but with overlapping dates, how does that work when it’s not the same destination? If someone decides to not take the trip after they have paid their money are they refunded, what are the details behind that?  

   4. Please share any additional feedback you may have.
   I have done a review of your site before and I am glade to see that you have revamped your homepage. This is much more professional and attractive then it was before. I like that you went so far as to put tourist on the shirt of the young man featured on your homepage. Once you have click on tab I was wondering how is the list populated. I see that you have rating number listed next to them but they are not listed in ranking order. I would want to see the most popular first and then down from there.

6. 1. What is your view of the home page? How does the site come across?
   Any suggestions for improvement?

   Your homepage is very colorful and attractive. It draws people to it easily by showing a few different destinations, who will be traveling to them, the date, and cost. The site comes across just as it is intended to as a social network for travelers. It gives people the opportunity to find a place to go, all the while finding out who will be on the trip and be able to get to know those other people. It gives the booking for the travel a more person touch.

   I think the homepage is set up very well, and I don’t think you need any improvements.
   2. Please comment on the site Navigation? Is it easy to find different
   attractions?

   Yes, I made 2 separate searches to find out what response I would receive. I liked how the places of interest are ranked and it tells you who particularly has gone there. The pictures are a nice touch as well, because if you have never been on a trip to the proposed destination, then you will get a better idea by viewing the pictures. I also liked how there is a drop down menu to show you all the most popular places to go, such as restaurants, shopping, art and culture, and special attractions. I think the idea of this website was well thought out.
   
   3. We just launched our group deal feature. These can be seen
   highlighted on the home page.
   Here is an example of a group deal page:
   https://www.touristlink.com/nepal/everest-base-camp.html
   What do you like or dislike about it?

   I like that there is a description about the trip including where you are going, the itinerary, and what is included. It is also nice to see a picture of the travel host who can be contacted, as well as seeing pictures of other members of the group. I noticed you can contact someone at the website for live support, and that is always good. You have done well with creating this website, and providing an explanation of what you can do on this site.  There are great deals to take advantage of for the trips that I viewed on the website.
   4. Please share any additional feedback you may have.
   I just think the site is really good, and that you should continue to promote it. I am sure there will be plenty of consumers that will not only enjoy it, but appreciate all the work you have put in to making their travel booking a much friendlier transition.

7. 1. What is your view of the home page? How does the site come across?
   Any suggestions for improvement?

   I think the the homepage looks fun and inviting, and I felt encouraged to continue on.
   2. Please comment on the site Navigation? Is it easy to find different
   attractions?
   Seems very simple to click on the most popular button to find other attractions.
   3. We just launched our group deal feature. These can be seen
   highlighted on the home page.
   Here is an example of a group deal page:
   https://www.touristlink.com/nepal/everest-base-camp.html
   What do you like or dislike about it?

   The deals feature is cool because if you are a looking for a great place to go on a budget, it takes you right to it.
   4. Please share any additional feedback you may have.
   I found the ads up top to kinda be in the way, I would suggest to maybe move them to the bottom, or along the other side. For some reason I kept wanting to look at them first thinking it was the information I had requested.

    

8. 1. The homepage looks clean and is laid out neatly.  I would suggest keeping the page structured without the use of frames as frames inhibit search engines ability to index the site correctly.  I would also replace the large graphic of the very cute traveler with a smaller graphic of the traveler alone to the right, and fill the space with text containing your targeted keywords.

   The home page displays correctly on mobile devices, but is difficult to pan and zoom around to navigate and get the information quickly.  I would suggest an additional page written for mobile devices with a script to direct visitors to the correct version for the device they are using to access the site with.
   2. Navigation is well laid out and clean, but as a first time visitor, I found myself spending a fair amount of time learning what your site is about, and how it is useful to me as a visitor.
   3. The group deals page is a great idea.  I would make this much more pronounced on the front page.
   4.  Overall I like the site and feel you have an excellent product.  Because you are marketing an international product, it would be nice if you had other language options for visitors to choose. As you are using a CMS for your site, they can tend to appear just like hundreds of other sites on the web.  Use of clever styling can really make a difference such as:
   <p><span style=”font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 14px; color: #00F;”><span style=”font-size: 16px; color: #600;”>Day 1</span> <span style=”color: #00F”>Kathmandu</span><br />
   </span>Arrive in Kathmandu and transfer to hotel.<br />
   <br />
   <span style=”font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 14px; color: #00F;”><span style=”font-size: 16px; color: #600;”>Day 2</span> <span style=”color: #00F”>Kathmandu Sight Seeing</span><br />
   </span> Half day sightseeing tour in Kathmandu   valley options of Thamel Shopping, Durbar Square, Boudhanath,   Pashupatinath Temple, Swayambhunath or Monkey Temple.</p>
   The site has an average load time that is 2.204 seconds. 74% of sites on the web are faster.  This figure is much slower on mobile devices.  SEO score is only 69% and keywords and other meta information is not being properly seen by search engines. Have your webmaster spend a little time optimizing or providing sitemaps and other resources to assist with this.

9. 1. What is your view of the home page? How does the site come across?
   Any suggestions for improvement?
    
   While it is very inviting and colorful. It seems to lack a social feel. That you get at other sites. You don’t really see any members til you scroll towards the bottom. Maybe consider having a small ticker on what recent post were by members. 
    
   2. Please comment on the site Navigation? Is it easy to find different
   attractions?
    
   I fin that when I click on a link like Accommodation it gives me a listing for everything. I would like for there to be a way of being selective about places. I do see you have a list of the countries above When I click on it it brings up attractions. Now it would be great if there were a way to make it so I can look up the various items for a country easily. I never found that I had to basically use the search bar to look up what I was interested in.  It was rather convoluted to get around the site. I managed to get a couple places that I wanted but wasn’t sure how I did it. When I bring up a list the map view didn’t seem to work to well. When clicking it from list to map it brings up a dot that I have to click other sites you can hover. It was only linking St Peters Basilica and I wanted something for the Sistine Chapel which in list view is a separate entry.
    
   3. We just launched our group deal feature. These can be seen
   highlighted on the home page.
   Here is an example of a group deal page:
   https://www.touristlink.com/nepal/everest-base-camp.html
   What do you like or dislike about it?
    
   Well I like that is gave a brief detail of the itinerary of the trip. Would be helpful to have a better understanding of what was included in the price and what is not. From what I could tell if you were not coming from a nearby region then you needed to make accommodations on getting to the meeting point.
    
   4. Please share any additional feedback you may have. 
   I noticed this site is more for people in India and surrounding regions. There are something things that would make it seem more global. On the various trips you offer would be nice to know what airfare needs to be covered by the individual. Also give reasons of why joining would be a good things. Are there any perks for joining? The discussions seem to be a little random in their listing. Maybe make it so you can see according to region or continent etc.

10. 1) I like the website at a glance, fresh bright colors, it has a few mentions of travel and tourist and all connected with the social media. I am not too sure about the image of the boy with the glasses and the backpack; I think it should be replaced with an image that corresponds to the idea of travelling better.
    2) Definitely not. I am a very experienced traveler and know a thing or two about travel websites. The tabs on the main menu should definitely be re-named and re-arranged. The information is scattered and does not correspond to the tab names. The only thing that is clear and well-organized is the log-in part in the right top corner along with the red-color ‘Join Now’ button. The tab ‘Members’ can be moved to the far left of the main menu bar, next to ‘Join Now’. You would easily miss the rest of the sections if you do not scroll down – the trips, tops lists and photo albums, along with the three additional sections. Maybe they can be somehow linked with the main menu. The popular destinations listed under ‘accommodation’ should definitely be formatted differently. Also, having Adchoices on the left distracts the attention which should be concentrated rather on a more organized content.
    3) I like the group deal feature. This is how I think the rest of the website should look like. The traveler wants to see a brief description, itinerary, dates and package price and an easy way to book. You have it all done and covered. Generally, information should be easy to find and well organized under certain groups – location, dates, and prices.
    4) I like the website and the idea overall. There are other platforms which sell packages to groups as a limited time offer but they are not specifically targeting travelers only. It is essential that you organize the information on the website better, look through the eyes of a traveler, what are you looking for when you are planning your trip – where, when, how much, who with.

11. 1) My view of the homepage is it looks quite clean and nice. It provides real interesting information for your visitors. The site have one attractive slogan is “Meet Friends, Discover Destinations. Share Experiences.” It can really attract visitors to browse the webpage without feeling uneasy. The webpage have three exciting trips with prices clearly stated. I think you need to add more exciting trips in the front page for new visitors, so that they will know about your service provided by your company.

    2) The site navigation is easy to use. All the pages in the website can be found on your tabs. Especially, the “Most Popular” tab. Click on this tab, visitors will be able to find different types of information according to their preferences. Have Countries, Cities, Recreation, Nightlife, Shopping, Restaurants and other most popular informations that visitors would like to find out. It is easy to find different attractions.

    3) I like the slides of the Ever Base Camp – 16 Days. Just click on the arrow, I can view the beautiful sceneries of different destinations. The pictures were well-taken. Should be taken by professional photographer. Click on the tabs can lead to Description, Itinerary, Inclusion and Exclusion. It is quite informative. The package looks attractive to potential tourists. I dislike about the price of the destination trip. Seem to be of value, but there isn’t  any discount to visit the destination. For prospective customers, price is always one of the main concern of buying a package. 

    4) This website is really good. I think you can still make a little improvement. Have more fabulous trips and offer discounts or offer some great freebies for tourists for buying those packages. In this way, the marketing effort will be greater. 
      

12. 1. What is your view of the home page? How does the site come across?
    Any suggestions for improvement?
     
    I liked the cartoon page, just wish it had some  type of movement or animation to it. If you are going to use cartoons, then why not make it animated.
    How about adding a Live chat or discussion link. Or even a link to talk to a live represenative. 

    2. Please comment on the site Navigation? Is it easy to find different
    attractions?

    Navigating was prety simple and easy.

     3. We just launched our group deal feature. These can be seen
    highlighted on the home page.
    Here is an example of a group deal page:
    https://www.touristlink.com/nepal/everest-base-camp.html
    What do you like or dislike about it?
    
      As I mentioned before, navigating the site was easy, but ended up a finding it awkward when I  saw a few RS. prices under DEALS. I like to see trip packages which will also include and advertise  free show tickets, meal discounts, etc…
     
    4. Please share any additional feedback you may have.
    
    How about some discount deals where  food coupon are included in package deals. How about even advertising a contest for free trips.

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