TRIPADVISOR BUSINESS ADVANTAGE? 400 EUROS LESS IN POCKET...
Photo Source: Gaetano Sciacca
Well yes... we succumbed to the "system"! Despite our enormous
concerns about it , at the end of the month of In August 2019, we were persuaded to shell out around
400 euros for the TripAdvisor Business Advantage package. What would we have liked to achieve?
Visibility in the default ranking of TripAdvisor, that is the one relating to the quality / price ratio. Before entering into the contract, to the
Business Development Sales Executive from whom we were contacted and subsequently also to the
Senior Customer Success Executive, we explicitly expressed the sole need to have visibility in the default sort order. We were therefore told that the
Business Advantage package would give us the opportunity to insert our own
Special Offer that would allow us to be included in the ranking according to the quality/price ratio . Was that actually the case? No, because whoever pays more actually precedes us.
How does it really work? In hindsight (and thinking about how many arancini we could have bought with 400 euros), I tried to better understand the mechanism. Despite the extremely favorable score given by the average of the reviews (currently 5 out of 5),
to be among the first positions in that system, you must have entered into a contract with a certified partner of TripAdvisor, that is one of the many
Online Travel Agency (for example Booking, Expedia, Hotels, Trivago). For those who are really white on the subject, these are intermediary multinational agencies to which the management of reservations for all or part of their accommodation is delegated, for certain periods, to which a commission (on average 15%) is owed for every booking was successful.
This is what TripAdvisor calls CPC Campaign.
The "problem" is that so far at Agricultural Camp Sophia we have never had the need to let others manage "our home". We have our website, we have our online booking system, "business" doesn't go so badly...
What reason would we have to entrust the management of reservations for our bungalows to an OTA? No reason and instead many good reasons to continue to reserve the possibility to decide what we consider most appropriate on our structure and not having to give explanations to anyone if we decide to make, for example, a discount to a customer.
Searching, for example, on Google ("incognito" mode) "camping Syracuse", in third position we find the ungrammatical link of TripAdvisor "The best 10 camping in Province of Syracuse in 2019 (with prices)". By clicking on it you will find yourself on the TripAdvisor page entitled "Camping a Provincia di Siracusa". The default ordering is according to the criterion of the relationship between quality and price. Our
special offer (of which the novelty is that the price is no longer shown) is absolutely (and intentionally, to test if these 400 euros have been well spent) the most convenient. The score determined by the average of the reviews, by selecting the order for
Traveler ranking, gives us, at the end of December 2019, the first place in the ranking. If mathematics is not an opinion, Agricultural Sophia, with a special offer lower than the prices proposed by the
competitors, should not be in first place also in the sorting for
Quality- price? And here the donkey falls ... Because
the Agricultural Camp Sophia will always come after the structures that decide to join a certified partner of TripAdvisor. And pay 400 euros for the site link and the phone number on TripAdvisor (when the most immediate source for this information is the free Google...), choose the order of the photos or the "favorite review" (which among the 'other seems to me really a prank...), for a small company, in my humble opinion, it is almost equivalent to throwing money. I would like to point out the
interesting opinion , from a few years ago but still currently, of the owners of the Preggio Organic Farm, on the usefulness of OTAs for a family-sized farm.
Text Source: Antonino Rampulla
ARCHIVE NEWS
CART RUTS CUT FROM QUARRIES
Back to CART RUTS AND A FEW TOO MANY PROJECTIONS
I will skip any preamble, referring to what has already been written regarding the presence of cart ruts in south-eastern Sicily.
The easy academic tendency has been, in most cases concerning cart ruts, to consider them in terms of the latomie, or quarries, with which very often (for example in the cases of the Targia or Pizzuta districts) they share the same territory.
According to this theory, the carraie would have been indirectly created due to the wear of the rock at each passage of carts or sleds loaded with extracted stone blocks. I will not repeat the arguments presented so far in order to demonstrate that this is a theory that has little solid foundations on an in-depth analysis of the cart ruts. However, I will add a piece by demonstrating the implausibility of a connection between them in both chronological and functional...
CART RUTS AND A FEW TOO MANY PROJECTIONS
Read also THE POLISHING OF THE CART RUTS
I will skip any preamble, referring to to what has already been written regarding the presence of cart ruts in south-eastern Sicily.Considering the possibility that the cart ruts were gradually dug by the passage of carts pulled by pack animals, for example pairs of oxen, observing certain sections of the cart ruts present in the Granatari Vecchi district, in Rosolini, and in the Pizzuta district, close to the Vendicari Reserve, two questions arise:
1. Why force the animals to pass over rough surfaces and protrusions high, compared to the base of the furrows, even 60-70 centimeters?
2. Why, in the presence of such obstacles, not opt for a detour?
For Mottershead, Pearson and Schaefer such protrusions appeared later, since at the time of the passage of the wagons, a layer of earth covered the rocky bank, thus not making the obstacle...
THE POLISHING OF THE CART RUTS
Read also THE PROBLEMATIC EDGES OF THE CART RUTS
I will skip any preamble, referring to to what has already been written regarding the presence of cart ruts in south-eastern Sicily.
To proceed with this comparison I have chosen a probable capital and the corner of a recess present in a block of the northern walls of Eloro that would seem to resemble a pinax, that is, a niche that would have housed a fresco of the heroa, but which a more careful observation refers to a system functional to the grip of the block through a pincer winch. Both elements, like the curt ruts, have remained at the mercy of the elements for millennia, and are therefore subject to comparable wear and tear due to the passage of time. The finishing of the capital should be of a high standard, since it is an architectural element that also has an aesthetic function. The recess, on the other hand, should have...
THE PROBLEMATIC EDGES OF THE CART RUTS
I will skip any preamble, referring to to what has already been written regarding the presence of cart ruts in south-eastern Sicily.As can be seen in other sites around the world, in some cart ruts I visited, in particular in the Cugni district in Pachino, in the Granati Vecchi district in Rosolini and in the Targia district in Syracuse, a clear border can be seen, a sort of frame, next to the grooves, more marked externally, barely noticeable internally.
The borders I measured have a width of 14-20 centimeters and a height of 8-10 centimeters.
Not all cart ruts have such frames present or particularly evident, regardless of the degree of wear or degradation. They are found above all in cart ruts with less deep grooves.
As already described in detail, given the presence of furrows with a depth of even 65-70 centimeters, the wheels of a possible vehicle would have had to have a...
THE PROBLEM OF CART RUTS IN SOUTH-EASTERN SICILY (PART FOUR)
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Clapham Junction
As in the Maltese site Misrah Ghar Il-Kbir, also in the Targia and Granatari Vecchi districts the cart ruts intersect and cross each other in a similar way to the track switches in a railway station. The nickname Clapham Junction that was given by David H. Trump to the Maltese site, derives precisely from the similarity with the famous English railway station. For Sagona these are agricultural furrows and water channels, for Mottershead, Pearson and Schaefer these are abandoned paths due to obstacles and wear. Obviously we do not know what the morphology of the Syracuse and Rosolini territory was at times when the cart ruts were traced, but considering the current context, there certainly would have been no agricultural reason to build them, given the presence of fertile land, springs and fresh water courses just a few kilometers...
THE PROBLEM OF CART RUTS IN SOUTH-EASTERN SICILY (PART THREE)
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Considerations on the theses of Mottershead, Pearson and Schaefer
I find this study extremely interesting, even if I am perplexed by this emphasis on the loss of hardness of the wet rock given that Malta is among the European territories at greatest risk of desertification (as is unfortunately also the south-eastern area of Sicily). We don't know exactly what the climate was like in Malta when the cart ruts were made, as we don't even know for sure how old they were made. However, it might be understandable to take the humidity factor as a starting point. n strong consideration, in relation to a territory constantly subject to rainfall, but why would the ancient Maltese have had to intensely travel with loaded carts right after a downpour, with all the inconveniences that for example the mud would have entailed?
The Maltese territory is...
THE PROBLEM OF CART RUTS IN SOUTH-EASTERN SICILY (PART TWO)
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The Greek chariot
In relation to the faithful reconstructions of the tools used at the time, recently made in Selinunte and in Valle dei Templi, and in comparison with Study of a Roman Cart by Paola Miniero, the axles of Greek carts of the time had to be no higher than half a meter from the ground and the gauge (i.e. the distance between one wheel and the other) had to measure between 140 and 150 centimeters. They had to plausibly be pulled by at least a pair of pack animals (as represented in the numerous numismatic and artistic testimonies that have come down to us) and have wooden but iron-shod wheels. Another reference for estimating the gauge is the width of two oxen side by side: the width of an ox is about 70-80 centimeters, so the minimum gauge between one wheel and the other, to maintain a certain stability, had to be at least 140...
THE PROBLEM OF CART RUTS IN SOUTH-EASTERN SICILY (PART ONE)
Who I am
Rereading the final draft of what I have written, I think it is appropriate to spend a few lines to introduce myself. I am Antonino Rampulla, owner of the agri-campsite whose website hosts this blog, a graduate in philosophy, with a growing passion for archaeology, born from curiosity for the archaeological sites of which, in particular, south-eastern Sicily is rich. Certain of my substantial ignorance on the subject, I try to make up for it by studying in my free time. However, not infrequently, I happen to come across historical certainties, academically shared, that clash a bit with what logic seemed to suggest to me from the observation of some details of the archaeological sites visited. So, simply, I ask myself questions and, with the most scientific approach possible, I try to look for answers. The result is the pretext to search for information, study and publish in...