September's Accommodation Award goes to...

The Grand Chateau

Our judges agree this is really an excellent site. The history of the establishment is not only well documented (the site makes mention of the fact that the building was a former psychiatric hospital and also that it's haunted) , but the theme is reinforced through the use of old black and white photographs and a parchment coloured page background. There's a consistent high quality presentation with "delight" factors that create a more unique experience, such as the, scroll-overs on the navigation bar, the "win a prize" section, the photographic tour and the "send a postcard" section. Little criticism could be made, but one weakness is perhaps in the search function. The search is called a "keyword search" but does not find results for more topic-oriented keywords. One judge noted that a search produced results from an old or test page which did not have graphics correctly implemented. Also, little information or illustration of guest rooms is provided. These are only minor niggles however, on what is otherwise an excellent example of a well thought-out website. A particularly nice touch was the "testimonials page" which featured comments from guests who have been visiting for as long as 70 years!

© 1998 Discover New Zealand Magazine