If their communications don’t bring in enough customers or, worse yet, drive them away, companies have no one to blame but themselves. And they can take corrective action once shortcomings are identified. But what do you do if a third party is killing your business by making you look like a goof?
That’s the question facing a number of hotels and at least one Canadian city, thanks to www.all-hotels.com.
I discovered this after accepting an invitation to rant about copy at the CMA’s Not-For-Profit Conference on Oct. 8 in Toronto. Although I’m from that neck of the woods, I haven’t been in the city for a while and wasn’t up to date on the latest accommodation offerings in Big Apple Jr. So I went on the Net.
The All-Hotels site has a lot going for it. It allows you to check out innumerable types of accommodation wherever your destination happens to be, anywhere in the world. It’s well organized. It’s easy to navigate. And it provides surfers with a host of what visitors to an unfamiliar city need and often can’t find – maps, including ones with helpful zoom-in/zoom-out features.
Unfortunately, the site also features copy.
I got a hint of what was in store when I read the first sentence of their description of Toronto. It begins, ‘This once obscure Canadian city…’
Why in the name of all that is urban would they say such a thing? Of course Toronto was once obscure. Except for the occasional planned city like Canberra, Washington or Brasilia that sprang to life semi-complete and pre-publicized, every city in the world was once obscure. Even Big Apple Sr.
The copy goes on to state that, ‘With its colorful ethnic mix, rich history and breathtaking architecture, Toronto is sure to keep any tourist amused.’ All I can say is that All-Hotels’ copy doesn’t keep me amused. Do they expect tourists to start chuckling every time they come across an ‘ethnic’? Or to crack up while reading some historic plaque? Or to double over in laughter when they gaze at the CN Tower?
If you’re still on the site after reading that page, there’s another that will inform you that Toronto can ‘suffer from extremes of temperature and wintry inches of snow.’ I assure you, they’re correct on this count; in all my years of living in Ontario’s capital, I never once knew it to suffer from summery inches of snow.
If the All-Hotels writer had been assigned only city blurbs to write, the site’s hotels wouldn’t have much to worry about. But judging by the amount of repetition in copy describing various properties, I have to believe that the All-Hotels scribe penned most of the accommodation synopses as well. For example, the first three Featured Toronto Hotels are described as being ‘in the heart of Toronto,’ ‘in the heart of downtown Toronto,’ and ‘in the heart of the city.’ It’s enough to make you wish someone had a heart and would buy their writer a thesaurus.
And apparently he or she isn’t getting much support on the IT side. When you click to find out more about the Crowne Plaza Toronto Center Hotel, you’re confronted with copy reading, ‘It®s where you want to be®in the heart of Toronto’s Entertainment and Financial Districts.’ I don’t know if ‘It®s’ and ‘be®in’ are good or bad, but I don’t want to risk finding out, so won’t be checking into the Crowne Plaza on this trip.
Getting back to the problem of repetition, Vancouver hotels fare even worse than those in Canada’s once-obscure city. Three of five Discount Hotels on the coast are described as being ‘in the heart of Vancouver.’ Not even a ‘downtown’ or a ‘city’ to break up the monotony.
But the award for the worst copy on the site doesn’t belong to All-Hotels. That distinction goes to Vancouver’s Le Soleil Hotel. (Because an identical description of its hotel is featured by a host of other online accommodation sellers, I presume that Le Soleil wrote its own inimitable copy.) Its copy block begins: ‘In the oyster of Vancouver, lies a pearl known as the Le Soleil Hotel.’
The reader can only take solace that whoever authored this metaphoric monstrosity showed some restraint and didn’t mention that patrons don’t have to shell out a lot of money for a room, or that they’re free to visit the hotel gym to build their mussels.
Then there’s the matter of accuracy. All-Hotels tells us that the Hyatt Regency Vancouver Hotel is situated ‘in the heart of beautiful and historic downtown Vancouver.’ Anyone who’s been to B.C.’s largest city knows that its downtown isn’t particularly historic, certainly not compared to the adjacent Gastown area where the city has its roots.
Whether they’re dealing in sporting events, theatrical performances or accommodations, online booking services offer a convenient and efficient alternative for people who don’t want to deal with a travel agent. You just wish some of them would emulate their human counterparts when it comes to verbal variety and plainspeak. You just wish they’d learn to write decent copy.
If you’re reading this before Oct. 8, you have time to catch Bob Knight in person, ranting and/or raving about copy. Just contact the once-obscure CMA at http://the-cma.org/events/notforprofit.cfm. If you’re looking for a DM, e or integrated campaign to do with fundraising, hotel marketing, or just about any other category, contact Bob directly at b_knight@telus.net. As you’ll discover, he can be very accommodating.
