It’s hard to find a decent hotel. All-inclusive resorts and hotels are the worst offenders. Photo after photo of perfectly pristine beaches, modern and clean rooms, and clear blue pools begin to look alike once you’ve viewed two or more of these hotspots.

There’s a very simple reason why hotel photos rarely reflect a hotel’s rooms or grounds. Most of these photos have been staged, touched-up, and created for viewers just like you. Of course, this makes it impossible to select a hotel based upon photos alone. Or is it? A new section of the website Oyster.com called “Oyster Shots” makes it a lot easier to find a hotel that’s true to the photos you see online.

How Oyster Shots Works

Oyster Shots is going out on a very long and thin limb. Instead of posting photos that hotels approve of, Oyster Shots posts real-life photos of every hotel on the Oyster Shots site. How is this possible? According to the Oyster Shots website, the Oyster Shots hotel team actually visits each hotel that is listed on the Shots website.

Once there, the members of the Oyster team rate each hotel according to site criteria, and snap a lot of photos. These photos are taken with regular digital cameras (no special lighting or staging crew involved), and then posted on the Oyster Shots website. What you see is what you are really going to get.

Searching At Oyster Shots

Oyster Shots is easy to navigate. Simply type a search term into the Oyster Shots search box (“beaches,” for example), and get ready to view a number of different beaches from across the world. Once you select a beach with corresponding hotel, you can book a travel packaged straight through the Oyster Shots website.

Prices and Ratings

Thus far, Oyster Shots seems to have competitive pricing. All of the photographs on the site also appear to be true to life. Presumably, the object of this website is to gain consumer trust. Once you learn to trust Oyster Shots, you will then book a hotel package with the company (this is the idea, anyway).

A Move In the Right Direction

Throughout the fashion world, numerous companies have begun to snap photographs of models that have not been touched up. Makeup Forever, for example, is currently running a untouched photography campaign. The idea is to be honest with consumers who are, frankly, tired of being lied and sold to. Of course, this is merely a different type of marketing, but it’s one that appears honest anyway.

Oyster Shots is cashing in on this new craze by presenting viewers with honest photographs and honest hotel ratings. How does Oyster Shots gain funding? Why, through advertising, of course. But, even though Oyster Shots advertises certain hotel chains and locations, the company’s owners claim that all photographs are true.

This is backed up by the “jobs” section of the site that seeks professional photographers throughout the world. If you’re looking to book a hotel, don’t believe the staged hype. Visiting Oyster Shots for a real look at what you’re about to buy.