A banner has gone viral on twitter warning users about the wrong listing on Google Maps. “One such place in India, where Google Maps are known to make mistakes, is Goa. The route to Baga Beach from nearby hotels can often be a tricky one and tourists often depend heavily on digital maps for directions.”
This is the news piece : Viral Google Maps Banner.
Some kind soul has taken the matter into his/her own hands and got this banner warning people of the pitfall.
This was the exact same issue I raised at Connect Live 2018. Sometimes for some unknown reason it is very hard to correct certain places as local guides on maps.
May be it is the filter or geolocation distance you are trying to move or perhaps that the place sees a lot of traffic or may be it has a lot of reviews. I narrated my incident of going to a Domino’s in 2017 January in Bangalore that was somebody’s home. It was not removed until October 2018. The owner was fed up of the fact that people show up at his door at least 5 times a day.
This is indeed troublesome as a community on many different levels. After coming back from Connect Live 2018, I visited Kolkata just days later and the cab dropped me in an area where the map shows the hotel should be in the dead of the night in not the most safest of areas.
I could not find the entrance to the hotel and upon calling the reception sent me a whatsapp link of their correct location. It took me 50 minutes to reach that place walking (no cabs in that area at that hour). Imagine having a family or being a couple subjected to this unintentional fault. This without exaggeration could lead to rapes, robberies and what not. The hotel reported that they have tried multiple times to get it rectified and speaking to other people at the check-in all complained of just that.
I reported it and finally it got rectified after I am told around 3 months of the hotel’s inception and constant efforts. Other guests reported that they had tried it and it never got rectified. Some people do mention in their reviews that the location is wrong but it is hard to read all the reviews to verify the location sometimes when you are in hurry.
One small cloth business in Bangalore had its advertising telling users to “look for KFC in the map and come to it. That is where we are. There is no KFC and you can cannot remove it either.”
Google maps is an integral part of our lives and as a traveler my life savior. Can not imagine life without navigation of Maps. I think we as community need to come together and find a solution where moving locations specially hotels/cafes/public parks easier or to have Google verify the businesses exact location someway or other.
With maps growing exponentially in South Asian countries without a grid like architecture and more people than ever in history using on Google Maps it is easy to add a wrong place but very hard to rectify it.
Google is very quick to pick on potential hazards to life and I am sure a solution could be found soon.
We have comical anecdotes like these day in and day out. Now we are seeing posters, who knows what next we will see when the next generation of Indians come on Local Guides Connect and bring that humor here:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.