About
our database
Preferred Places is a database of holiday cottages
throughout the UK, Ireland, Portugal and France
where users book direct with the owners. We
do not charge commission or booking fees and
generate our income from 12 monthly advertising
fees. The ads include 3 colour photos, approx
500 words of text with key facilities and amenities
listed as bullet points. We have an extensive
range of searchable options including facilities
for families, great outdoors, disabled access,
pets and groups. Users have the choice of quick
search (above left) or advanced
search. Please have a look at some of our
ads to see what we offer users.
Why offer this service?
There are many websites out there all trying
to do the same thing and the competition involved
means that few sites ever manage to make a really
good job of it. However it is becoming increasingly
popular to collaborate so that sites can work
together rather than compete with one another.
For example you could spend lots of time and
effort building a list of holiday cottages which
match the focus of your website. However the
effort this would take means you are unlikely
to generate a comprehensive list and your search
options are likely to be limited. In teaming
up with Preferred Places we take care of all
of this for you. You benefit from the database
and our owners benefit from increased traffic.
You can even limit the access to search options
which reflect your site.
Preferred
Places is committed to providing the cottage
owners listed on our database with the maximum
number of enquiries and bookings possible. The
key to this is the number of users of our database.
In allowing other websites to utilize the database
we are giving our cottage owners a greater opportunity
to achieve bookings.
We are also keen to offer a service for other
websites. The process of developing this database
has been long and complicated - a process far
beyond many sites who have other things to focus
their attention on, and yet would like to be
able to offer such a facility to their customers.
The scheme is therefore of mutual benefit. Why
not collaborate with us today so that we can
both improve the quality of the service we provide.
What
will you get from it?
Preferred Places has worked hard to produce
a database which is easy to use and yet comprehensive
in its functions. We feel that with continuing
development which is driven by customer feedback,
that we can offer one of the most sophisticated
search tools for holiday accommodation on the
internet. In accessing our database through
your own website you are providing the visitors
to your own site with the opportunity to benefit
from this functionality without the cost and
inconvenience of developing such a system yourself.
Why is this better than a straight forward
link?
If you simply link to our website then you are
directing your own traffic away from your site.
The service we offer allows you to keep hold
of your traffic whilst still allowing them to
access our facilities. The window which contains
the search and results information does not
contain links to other parts of our site so
people will not continue to move away from you.
They will simply close the pop-up window and
return to your main page.
Accessing the database in this way allows you
to present a much more professional image whereby
the database seems to be more of a part of your
own site. If you wish to exclude the Preferred
Places logo to create the impression that the
database is more a part of your own site then
we will be happy to negotiate terms and prices.
We offer a two tier system whereby you can link
for free but keep our branding, or pay for some
customization so that you will access your own
unique search and results pages and these can
be tailored so they fit with your own site.
Customized Versions
As well as customizing the way the database
looks, we can also tailor the search criteria
to meet the needs of your own site so you can
specify if you only want access to properties
within a specific area (e.g. the UK or Wales)
or with a specific feature (e.g. family friendly,
fishing, walking or climbing).
It may also be possible to collaborate with
databases within your own site and thus further
increase the level of functionality. Please
contact
us with details of your specific requirements.
How
it works
1. If your site has frames :
We provide the link to the pages on our server.
These are not our sites webpages, but specific
pages containing only the search options and
results. Depending on the way your frames operate
the search box itself will either appear within
the frame or as a small pop-up window accessed
via a button within the frame. This window will
show your logo with the preferred places logo.
2. If your site does not have frames:
As above but the link/button would have to direct
to a pop-up window containing the search options.
Again this window will show your logo along
with the preferred places logo. This window
would also contain results and booking details.
Levels of Partnership
Level 1. - Free access
This allows you to include a free link on your
website to your database, which would bring
up a pop-up window with the search page so that
people could search for cottages.
This
is the same as websites such as multimap.com.
The search page that comes up would have preferred
places' branding along with your own logo.
You
will also have the ability to customize the
properties which you want to come up by specifying
climbing, walking etc.
To
do this all you have to do is register your
site and you will be sent via email the code
to include on your site.
Advantages
for you are that your visitors will get free
access to our database, we in return will get
higher hit counts and hence more bookings for
the owners on our site.
Example
Register Now!
Level
2. - Semi - Partner status
As the
above, but you will get a customized version
of the search pages. We will create and host
your own pages which can be customized to reflect
your own branding and design, making it look
like the search facilities are a part of your
site.
This
can be done for a standard setup charge (£400)and
a small subscription fee (£100 per annum).
For this you get full search facilities of our
database with it all looking like it's come
from your own site, rather than ours. The benefit
to us is that we still get the increased hits
on our properties and hence more bookings etc
so our customers are happy.
Example
Register Now!
Technical
Information
The site is run on Cold fusion 4.0 with an SQL
Server database. For technical queries please
email Darren Hall (dhall@trmedia.co.uk).
