Hello @danbrowland ,
Thank you @MortenCopenhagen for tagging me.
In general the answer is no.
I actually spent a half hour on the weekend deleting restaurants, pools, playgrounds, beach areas, etc. from numerous all inclusive resorts in Playa del Carmen.
There are several reasons why I did so, which include:
- For a business to be mapped it needs to be open to the public. Almost all facilities with a resort are only available to users of the resort, and thus don’t qualify to be mapped.
- Components of features on a map can only be mapped under special circumstances.
- Places on the map need to have proper names and not descriptions. This doesn’t apply to most restaurants in resorts, but does apply to the pool, playground, etc.
I’ll go into the above points in more detail below.
The idea of a place being on the map is that you should be able to look up the category, see the POI on the map, travel to it, and be welcomed and helped. Arriving to find out you need to be a resort guest is not helpful for the general user of Google Maps. The rare case where restaurant within a resort should be mapped, then, is when it does allow the general public to also dine there.
This is a rule, however, that you need to apply some logic when using. For example, a car factory may not be open to the public, but it is valuable to be on the map for those that do need to visit such as delivery drivers, repairmen, job applicants, etc. It is also a large landmark that people might use as a reference point. It’s allowed on the map because the people that would look it up and travel to it would be the level of help they should expect to get.from such a facility. The general public would not look up a car factory and expect to go in a get help buying a car, but they would look up a restaurant and go in expecting to be able to buy a meal.
In almost all cases, components of something on the map should not be themselves be mapped. A feature on the map should just have one POI, and any others are considered duplicates; even if they have different names and/or components. Departments can be mapped only under strict circumstances which usually include their own distinct space, their own staff, their entrance, their own place to collect payment, and most importantly their own phone number. This is the rule that allows the pharmacy and photo centre in a Walmart to be mapped, but not the men’s wear department, grocery department, toy department, etc. In a resort the restaurants do not generally have their own cash registers and phone numbers because they are not open to the public.
The final rule I mentioned because while most resort restaurants do have proper names, the pools, playgrounds, beach chair area, ice machines, etc. do not. Realize that “RIU Cancun Children’s Playground” is a description, not a proper name.
In summary, there’s a lot of rules that apply in this situation, but the end thing to realize is that the addition of restaurants not open to the general public makes searching for a restaurant not work for the general public. If one wants to make a map that helps just resort customers, this is where the custom mapping features that Google offers are useful. In this case a Google My Map would be most appropriate.
Regarding the “Located within” field, could be used for those rare departments that do meet the rule for departments being mapped, but is mainly for businesses that are located within other businesses. So a McDonalds within a Walmart or a Sephora within a shopping mall would be where this is intended to be used. It was added to help people find businesses that are hidden by the container business they are within.
