Good morning Alan:
The new site is definitely much easier to navigate and find a match for requirements - However, as a self catering provider, who is not prepared to offer an online booking facility to a third party, having paid handsomely for registration to VS, to successfully attract enquiries to our own website, it is unacceptable that the main link is to a third party booking engine. One has to scroll beyond that link to discover the correct link to our web site which has its own booking form. We will be taking up this matter direct with VS, but hope this adds to your ammunition to tackle this hi-jacking of Scottish tourism.

I have now discovered that the village where we are located is not on the VS website - we are listed as 'Mull (local area)' a designation that covers several locations all over the island that don't fit into one of VS listed village locations. I don't even show up on a search of B&Bs within 5 miles of the nearest village they do list. In other words I am invisible. The search facility doesn't work anyway. What a b**lls up. This is my livelihood they're tinkering with and come to think of it my taxes are also being used to subsided this inefficiency.

Alan,
I have just visited the new visitscotland.com website and you are quite correct...it has got worse ! When I looked at our own entry I was completely confused as to what information I was actually reading and initially read the wrong prices for our rooms...if I am confused, as the owner of the hotel, then what chance does a foreign visitor have? They over complicate something that should be very simple ; this occurs solely due to their need to generate money via their online booking service. All that is needed on our entry is the bit about it being a nice family run hotel etc; rooms available from £ ??.?? per night and our contact details IN FULL !! Visitscotland are required to phone us to confirm availability anyhow...we don't do the online booking facility! All that information about rooms available for single occupancy , rooms available for up to 4 people etc just confuses matters....and I read it as if we were charging £80.00 for a double room.....it is £55.00 !!! I am not going to be the only one who makes that mistake; how many others will check and check again before realising what it is that they are actually reading! Total NIGHTMARE !

Thanks for the updates - I agree that any competent business that is given millions of pounds of taxpayers' money [no, in fact any competent business that is not given any taxpayers; money] should have tested the website before launching it. In fact with the resources at visitscotland's disposal it would have been easy to launch a 'demo' version of the new website then canvas the opinions of a) the general public b) people who had booked through visitscotland in the past and c) accommodation providers that are members of the organisation, then wait for a hundred or so responses before proceeding. The user experience [in my opinion] is the most important issue with visitscotland.com - ask 100 people to look at the website in their lunch hour and note their observations. Within 5 minutes [this is how long it took me to work out how to display an accommodation providers' details] I noticed a situation that is very likely to happen. Whilst their partner is out at work and their children are at school, a person uses visitscotland to select three possible cottages [for a planned short break in the school holidays]. They print each one of the three pages to show their family later - after discussion, they choose to contact two of the three. However, because they didn't realise that the contact details don't print unless you click on the 'Further contact details...' link on each advertisement first, they only have postal addresses. So they have to switch the computer back on, go back to visitscotland, hunt around for the chosen properties, then work out how to contact them.

Thanks for your e-mail just opened up at the new site and not impressed at all. Balloch is not even on the map or Loch Lomond for that fact, how are people ever going to want to book accommodation. Another step backwards. Keep up the good work.
regards

Hi Alan,
I would like to add my voice to the many disgruntled accommodation providers out there. My website is not loading, PLUS, I apparently only have 2 double rooms. They have not got my Family room on Welcome page and they have used an ancient picture !!!!!!
Giving up, going to Spain.....

Thank you for the notification,
I am not thick.
I took a couple of minutes trying to find my way through the crystal maze, (search for my area, property), Saw the Jim will fix it for £3.00 telephone number and felt ever so tempted to phone because I had lost the strength/will to toil any further. I might just stay at the Cairn though at least I could find it! I just couldn't be bothered to go any further, if I feel like that and I know what I am searching for, it would follow that other people would find themselves up a blind alley. It just gets worse. Is this lip service I wonder. May I congratulate you and thank you for your combined efforts at the Scottish parliament. I watched intently, and commend you for your responses and strength of will throughout the proceedings. I feel my nerves would have got the better of me under such circumstances, well done both. I think you kept as close to the outline as you could and did get the message across. It is great news that you have lifted the lid off Pandora's box in that there will be a lot more close inspection to the problem as we know it. We just want a fair deal to represent the members of the association. Not the deal as we know it.

Looking at the entry for the Western Isles I noted that they don't list the new multi million pound Art Centre, An Lanntair.
According to Visit Scotland there is only one ancient settlement on the island, the rest are listed under visitor centres, including the World Famous Callanish Stones. I tried a search on Callanish Stones and the Gaelic spelling Calanais, both came up 'sorry............'!
I think a major point in all this is; It is only those who pay that are included. If you happen to have a stunning beach or scenic attraction then you might get a mention in the 'local site' in our case it's Visit Hebrides, which isn't updated and doesn't even rank in the search engines. As your campaign points out it is money led and not in the interest of promoting Scotland, very much a case of 'Pay us or you don't exist!'

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I have just spent a frustrating afternoon trying to “personalise” this web-site. Just changing my password means going to “extras” then “settings” then “password”. Some of the language used to navigate it looks like the intructions on a Japanese television where the words are in English but just don’t seem to make sense.
I have e-mailed and received a response after two days (they have been overwhelmed) referring me to the 38 page PDF document which explains how to operate it. If it takes 38 pages then there is something far wrong. Also why would I print off 38 pages?
The site is so obviously set up for larger hotels to allocate rooms in batches and not for the likes of us who have to monitor each room daily. If we make a mistake in updating this monstrosity of a site then we are to blame and liable!! Sometimes I think VisitScotland have forgotten there is a free market out here and we don’t all work full time for them.
I still find it unbelieveable that they still ask customers to search by “accommodation type.” If I were coming to Edinburgh I would have an idea how much I wanted to spend but would want the best accommodation that money could buy. That might be a deal in a large hotel, a nice apartment or a luxurious guest house. At the budget end, it could be a small bed and breakfast or a budget hotel or even a cheaper apartment. If you search on Laterooms, all Edinburgh’s accommodation comes up on four pages starting with those having availability, then listing with a single line for each one showing name, distance from centre, grading and price of cheapest room. They list 1 star guest houses alongside 5 star hotels so the customer can choose whether price, location, grade, accommodation type or hotel name is more important. I can update that site daily within about 3 minutes and more importantly, they use my cancellation policy, send me the credit card details of the client and confirm by both e-mail and fax so I never miss a booking. We charge the customer the full rate and pay Laterooms by direct debit at the end of each month.Why does Visit Scotland have to make such a simple thing so complicated?