INTRODUCTION
From The Beginning
My name is Eric Rabinowitz, the creator of the Cancun travel guidebook and companion PEOPLE'S CHOICE GUIDE (com) website. Before I get started, i want to say that this will most likely be the longest blog entry I will ever make, at least I certainly hope so. The reason I am even posting about what made me decide to write a travel book is because of the amount of times I have found myself explaining to people why and how I got started doing this in the first place. I figure enough people have shown an interest, so why not start from the beginning. If you are not one of those inquisitive people however, you should skip all this and read future blog posts and follow us on FACEBOOK and TWITTER.
Although I am a relatively new author, this is not my only profession. My primary love and passion lies in the field of music, namely as a singer songwriter. The following is a little background on what led me to decide to write a travel guidebook in the first place, and why I chose to write about Cancún.
In early 2000, I needed a vacation in order to escape the every day rigors of the music business. Being the leader of a band is hard work, sort of like being a teacher trying to manage a rowdy class of fourth graders. After not having gone on a vacation in several years, I wanted to visit a place where I could feel safe while traveling solo, to a destination with great weather and fantastic beaches to enjoy it on. I decided on Cancún since I could experience everything I was looking for, plus the highly publicized nightlife. In addition there were the nearby cultural monuments of the Mayan world which had always fascinated me as a young boy, which can be visited easily on day trips.
While planning my first Cancún vacation, in order to become better prepared I decided to buy a few travel guides. They listed the usual; how to get there, the weather, some descriptions of Cancun restaurants, clubs, bars, accommodations and a few tour suggestions. However once I got there, I realized the books were far from being reliable sources. For example, I found there were many wonderful restaurants that never received a mention in Frommer’s, Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, Moon, Hidden, etc., etc. Then there were instances where I read a great review, I wondered if what I was reading was completely honest and unbiased. It seemed that many of the guidebooks included the same few establishments and presented descriptions that sounded very similar to one another. Was this merely a coincidence? Was there something more going on beneath the surface? This really bothered me, especially during future trips when I returned to Cancun and became more familiar with all that it had to offer.
In February of 2002 during my fifth trip, I was approached by an entertainment manager at one of the hotels with an interesting proposition. He asked if I would like to entertain poolside at his hotel the following month with my band Turbulence, in exchange for room and board. I thought for a moment about what it would be like to be performing with my rock band, surrounded by beautiful women during spring break, the busiest and craziest time of year; but I digress… Of course my answer was, “Si Señor”! I returned with my band a month later, but a twist of fate had us instead playing for one of the bigger name clubs during their nightly bar hopping tour.
Since I was the leader of the band and had already been to Cancún several times, I was designated the official trip organizer. Despite giving the drummer and guitarist their own travel guides, they were still in need of much guidance. “Which place serves the most authentic Méxican Caribbean style seafood” "Where can we get inexpensive tacos" or, “This club sounds great, where is it in relation to our hotel”, became familiar themes throughout the trip. This is understandable because travel guides do not cover enough establishments nor accurately describe the locations of businesses in relation to resorts. As I gave advice throughout the trip, both band members kept egging me on, saying I should write a Cancún guidebook. Little did they know, I already had a loose plan starting to take shape in my head to do just that.
Upon returning home, I began putting a plan in motion to create the travel guide I wish I had with me during my trips to Cancún. As I started collecting and piecing information together, it was my primary goal to publish a book with info that can be located and used, quickly and easily. It was also important that it would appeal to those returning to Cancún for their fifth trip, as much as someone who is a confused newbie. The confusion for most begins when trying to choose an appropriate place to stay. Cancún hotels routinely advertise themselves as being three and four star rated, when in reality most of them would receive a maximum of only two or three stars in the U.S., Canada and Europe. I am sure many repeat Cancún visitors can relate to that very scenario. We all face this dilemma at one time or another because with so many accommodation choices, how is anyone supposed to know which ones are winners and which ones fall short? With just a couple of travel writer’s opinions to go on, how can anyone trust that the opinions expressed in travel guidebooks are unbiased? Even when it comes to restaurants, clubs and bars, perhaps the writer wrote their review based on the experience they had when they visited a place when it was having a great day, or perhaps an extraordinarily bad one. Another dilemma travelers run into once they are in Cancún, when asking for a recommendation from the hotel’s concierge, they quite often direct their guests to the establishment that treats them most favorably. To find a way around these situations, I set out to create a unique travel guide that could be used to make quick comparisons between accommodations. I surmised this could be done if Cancun travelers can vote on a website, which would then calculate the scores based on a series of criteria, and use them to rate accommodations. The results would then be displayed online, on a dedicated ACCOMMODATIONS PAGE that allows people to compare the scores the accommodations earned and truly deserve. Once that was perfected, the next step was to see if the same technique could be applied to rate the hundreds of Cancún restaurants, clubs and bars. Once everything was tested, tweaked and fine tuned, the PEOPLE'S CHOICE GUIDE CANCUN website was launched in January 2004.
As the website was busy collecting ratings and reviews from Cancun travelers, I arrived at the realization that the listings would be even more useful if they included information supplied directly by the establishments themselves. The details published in the book would therefore act as a free promotional advertisement for each business combined with their guests' opinions. This unique approach means that our book would not just be another writer’s review, but instead would convey accurate up to date information supplied by thousands of different sources. Once all the data was collected and checked for accuracy, it was sent to the book designer to be organized into a book format. However there was word of a major storm on the way, just one day after the files were sent. I spoke to the designer and we both agreed that it made sense to wait to see what happened with the hurricane. For the next two days, Hurricane Wilma slammed Cancun, and essentially ruined the travel and tourism industry. For the next several months, I called every last business to get updates of their status and projections on when they believed they would be able to reopen. Nine months later, in May of 2006, the premier edition, and the only book with complete Post-Hurricane Updates, PEOPLE'S CHOICE GUIDE CANCUN Travel Survey Guidebook was released.
Since that first edition, the thing that readers appreciate most is the trust in the information. Since no one is pressured or paid to give their opinions, if an establishment deserves criticism or praise, that is exactly what it will receive in our guidebook. We are confident that our method of combining a voter driven survey together with a travel guide writing style format, will greatly enhance your experience in Cancún. It will virtually guarantee you have the best tool for assisting in making your vacation, time well spent. Our travel guide will also be supported with frequent updates on our website. This means no more wasting time looking for that restaurant all the other travel guides are telling you to visit, but has since gone out of business. We do however rely on your comments and suggestions for future editions. If you would like to cast your vote, give opinions and submit information for our upcoming book, please visit our website's VOTE PAGE. Your opinions and feedback would be greatly appreciated, and will ultimately help us, help other Cancun travelers in the future.
