Hello,
Thanks for your feedback.
Apologies for the inconvenience caused, very few accommodation providers on the Island are willing to pay for direct feeds to be set up to enable live availability. This is mainly due to the demand and available funds.
Unlike the UK or cities around the world where there is a regular tourist demand, the Isle of Man is very much seasonal during the months of May - September. Outside of this period, the majority of the accommodations are either empty or struggle to fill their bed spaces. The Isle of Man is weather dependent and not many visitors want to visit the Island during the winter months.
We have most recently changed our accommodation booking system from an accommodation manual allocation where the accommodations manually kept their bed spaces up to date to a request only based system. We found with the previous system the accommodations were either not updating their allocation or the demand wasn't there for the accommodations to keep it updated.
With this in mind, we found the ‘on request’ system the best way forward and yes, I agree with the technology currently available you would expect to receive a confirmation instantly, confirming availability but the Isle of Man accommodations would make very little or be at a loss if they paid the technology costs to have direct feeds with suppliers such as ourselves.
On occasions, sometimes you might find the accommodation cheaper going direct but as an overall travel package including travel and accommodation, you will find us cheaper. We have agreed rates with the airlines and ferry operator and with some accommodation providers.
Our site is aimed for the consumer looking to book their travel, accommodation and possibly register for an event on the Island, all under one roof, instead of going to multiple sites to book everything individually. This itself saves time and money!
I do hope the service you have received has been satisfactory and my email has provided an insight to part of the tourism market on the Isle of Man.
Again, apologies for any inconvenience you may have been caused.
Regards
Darrel Tinnion
Group Operations Manager
