How easy it is to forget...

... that we live in a tremendously advanced country, technologically.

We take so many things for granted. For example, pretty much every single hotel, motel and bed and breakfast in the US can be booked online, through consolidators like Expedia and Orbitz. Want to negotiate? Priceline is a click away. Find that super special hideaway? Google will find it, give you the contact info, summarize reviews, and hand you their website, all in about 5 seconds.

In fact, the services industry is just amazingly available online here in the US.

Not so, however, in the rest of the world. In Israel - arguably one of the most advanced countries in the world technologically - things work... differently.

I've posted already the story about the funny policies of that hotel in the north of Israel. Today I'll speak to my experience trying to book another hotel for the period. The challenges, as I encountered them over and over again:

1. Not even close to all hotels are available on the consolidator sites. Maybe 50% in big cities. Maybe. Worse, each of the sites is relatively small and fragmented in terms of its offerings, which is odd; one would expect some of them to merge and create an Expedia-like entity. Nope. So instead of going to two or three large sites, you have to dig through about a dozen to get a semi-reasonable view of each location's availability. And that's in large metro areas.
   
2. The sites themselves, by and large, do not support anything other than Internet Explorer. Hello? Firefox already has over 20% of the personal browser space... and what about Opera? The funny thing is that the sites still seem to work in Firefox, but they get messed up if you try to make a booking; the dates get posted wrong, or the site reverts to previous pages without warning.
3. Most sites make an attempt to have an English version, but it's poorly implemented. So you may see a great English start page, but then you try to book something and the booking engine is all-Hebrew, or maybe a hybrid. Gah. Speaking of which, quoted prices tend to change between the quote page and booking page, so pay attention to what you're committing to pay.
4. Even on English pages, the dates are presented in Euro format - even when presenting prices in dollars. You know, day and month switched. I'd expect to see the euro format when quoting prices in Euros, and the US format when quoting in dollars. Not a single site does this.
   
5. Poor coding abounds. Referrer links that are improperly coded in HTML cause browsers to dump sessions. Try going through the booking process here and then here - it's the same site, but going through the former will result in "expired session" notices when attempting to book, whereas the latter will work fine. If you happen not to realize this, you will get frustrated very quick, especially when this site also tends to show the best rates across the board.
6. Major rate differences across sites. I suppose this is dependent on individual agreements between some hotels and some sites, but it can drive a person nuts. You really do have to check every single one of the dozen or so poorly coded, poorly implemented, inconsistent and language-schizo sites to get the best rates, because each one seems to have the best deal on something. And the differences are significant (as much as double the price). Compare to the US where it's more a question of brand loyalty and flavor whether you will book through any of the major travel sites, but where prices are always relatively close if they are different at all.
7. Non-confirmed confirmations. Another little surprise for people used to the US. You may book a place, get a confirmation, and even get your card charged, only to get an email two days later "uncomfirming" the booking, and a reverse charge (thank god for that). The whole thing is truly bizarre - what I suspect is going on is that the sites are booking based on inventory information that is not up to the minute, and then the hotel's reservation desk is "unbooking" those same reservations. What I don't understand is why they charge in advance, because the chargebacks on these cross-border transactions must be killing them.

There are more issues, but this should give you a picture. Another interesting problem is places that have a site that is not working, but which are not connected to any consolidator. I am trying to book one night in a place like that, and I've been emailing back and forth with their reservation desk, and they keep referring me to their site - which is not running. Whether I will actually be able to book the place is yet to be determined. Nuts. At least I found their email - posted in a review by a helpful fellow traveler who apparently encountered the same problem quite a while ago. How long does it take to create a website?

Good ol' Israel. It's a common joke amongst Israelies that we are a happy-go-lucky bunch - the country of "three screws". That is, when something comes with instructions that require four screws, we will always only put three in, and figure that should cover it. If we even go that far. A lot of stuff is done in this fashion - get it up to the place where it's sort of working, and then move on. It's why a lot of Israeli hi-tech companies never get beyond a certain size, and why they need American managers so badly in order to succeed. Brilliant folks, not so good on execution.