Once upon a time Charles Caleb Colton suggested that ‘imitation is the best form of flattery’ and ever since people have been using the line happily. Err no one knows Colton though.
So yesterday, we were going through Google Analytics, checking which pages on our website people like visiting, the keywords they use, trying to appear as if we were doing something terribly important. And then Google showed up a page that was linking to us. It looked innocuous in itself ‘Skytrip.in’. Judging by the name you would think that are a nice bunch of people offering you hot air balloon rides (free coffee with each ride!). So we sauntered over to Google’s main page and checked for their website.
It opened up our website. Strange, for the address bar did insist that it was Skytrip.in that we were on. But those banners on the top, they were surely ours? ‘Guide-giri in Delhi’ , ‘India’s Best Offbeat Holidays’, ‘Best Beach Hotels’ these are all banners and products we are quite proud of, and created after we were asked, told, threatened to come up with “something creative, you dunderhead!” . Scrolling down, every single section of our website was sitting as neatly and prettily on theirs – the flash sale deal(even the time and price), our top trending destinations, our honeymoon packages, everything.
The only exception, was the contact number. Now now, we wouldn’t have felt too upset about that, if they were sharing our contact numbers with customers for booking.
Funnier still, on clicking any of their homepage links, it opens up a standard ‘coming soon’ page. Basically somebody was clever enough to copy our home page’s source code, but probably was too lazy or stoned to do the rest, and had left it for a later date.
Sherlocks that we are, we immediately entered the phone number on Google and it corresponded to a “Tanu Travels” in Janakpuri, Delhi. Next, we called them on the pretext of booking a holiday package. The sales guy would surely have been helpful, and would have answered all our queries hadn’t his buddies been making a frightful din at the back. “abbey be****** ek second customer ki baat sunne do , pi lena baad mein” , he wailed.
Not able to stifle our laughter, we thanked him for the assistance and hung up. Just before doing so, Mohit (our Sales Head) asked the exasperated guy on the other end his name.
“Neeraj.”
Just had to be that, eh.
—————————————-
P.S. Recently, they have decided to be kind to us, and removed the top banners, replacing them with banners of skimpily clad foreigners in Goa holidays. Oh well, a Delhi Heritage Walks banner can’t really compete with that can it, Maybe if we change our name to WeAreTanuTravels, we might get a few eyeballs. What say?
At WeAreHolidays, Neeraj Narayanan is Head of the Content and Digital Media Team. He has a Masters in Advertising & Media Communication, has had experience as a Communication Consultant to the Government of Gujarat, and as a Brand man in the IT giant firm - Cognizant.
On weekends, he conducts Heritage Walks in Delhi.
Neeraj Narayanan – who has written 59 posts on WAH Blog.
