You may have been asking yourself how I can afford to provide you all this information for free. Well, one way is through the "sponsored pages" program.
A sponsored page is written by me with the financial support of the hotel, guest house or travel service that is the subject of the page. Sponsored pages are clearly labeled so that you know we've received compensation for the page.
Any page without the "Sponsored Page" label is my own personal opinion of the place. Only a few of the more than 4,000 pages on this site are sponsored. I use sponsored pages to help support this site, and to bring you as much information as possible to help you plan your travels in Southeast Asia.
With sponsored pages, I try to tell you what you need to know about a hotel, restaurant or travel service, and avoid the hype you normally get from the destination itself. I won't tell you that a hotel is "near all the sights" or that a restaurant is "comfortable and reasonably priced" if it really isn't.
It naturally follows that I only agree to do a sponsored page if I feel that the subject truly deserves inclusion on this site. I won't give you bad advice just to make a few bucks.
It's possible that my experience when reviewing a place, whether it was sponsored or not, might be different than yours. If you find that a place is not what you expected, or a place does not live up to my description, I want to know. Please use the feedback form to inform me.
If you have a hotel, guest house, tour service or restaurant that you would like to sponsor a page for, please use the feedback form to contact me.
Not sure a review or advertising on the web is worth it?
According to the the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), the web is now the most popular means of booking travel. In 2005, more than a third of all transportation and more than a quarter of all hotel rooms were booked through the Internet. In both cases, the web is now the preferred method replacing telephone call centers and travel agents.
Just because people are making their travel arrangements on the web doesn't mean they're spending less. In fact, the data from the TIA survey indicates that the average spend for online bookings was US$754, excluding transportation, compared to just $406 for trips booked offline through travel agents or telephone call centers.
Travel Industry Association of America (TIA)
To find our more, read about the PR Power of the Web by veteran web travel writer Durant Imboden.