Sometimes, when I talk about the map project with someone, they tell me:
But everything you do is already available on Google Maps, Google Earth, Wikimapia, Panoramio, etc!

However, it certainly is not! And here is why:

It is correct that each of the above mentioned maps has SOME information - what one can find on one map is often not on the other and vice versa. In addition, public mapping projects have one big flaw: everyone can put information into the map and this leads to a couple of problems:

1) Entries are usually only made to one of the maps, which means, on the others it is missing.
2) A lot of the entries are locations of private homes. As much as this helps friends, to find someone, as little it contributes to finding companies or public services.
3) Unfortunately, quite a few of the entries are incorrect, some are even significantly incorrect:

As the first example of many, here is a screencopy of the actual Google Map (2009-06-10) of the center of Sousse:

I have marked the area of the "Ribat" in Sousse (an ancient fortified tower) with a red box. In this box are however, according to Google maps, 2 hotels, the Riadh Palms and the Panorama - which are though, in reality, nowhere near the Ribat or even the center, but lie approximately 2km away, north of the center. Even worse is the location of (A), the Kantaoui Club, because it is not even located in Sousse at all, but about 15km to the north behind Port El Kantaoui.

The second example is from Google Earth, here is a screencopy of the actual Google Earth map (2009-06-10) of the center of Tunis:


Both examples are not an exeption, by far not, but errors like these can be found all over all of the above mentioned maps. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but definitely so frequent, that it is impossibe to rely on the information.

Hotel maps of travel agencies, on the other hand, list in many cases only the hotels that these travel agencies offer to their customers, meaning that the lists are more than incomplete. But even if they were actual and complete - as funny as it sounds, but I have found multiple misplaced objects on their maps, sometimes the hotels are 10km away from where they are located in reality. I hope that they will, at least, know exactly, how to get their customers into the hotels, even when they are apparently sometimes not really sure about their locations....

So - why is AllOfTunisia a different/new concept?

Well, firstly, we do not allow anyone to put a location on the map, but they only can send in suggestions. In turn, we will then check the entry and try to verify the information by our own knowledge, by cross-referencing with many other sources and, from time to time, even by checking it out ourselves on location.
Secondly, we try to maintain the actuality of the map by re-checking the information frequently, at least every couple of months. Of course, buildings do not move around, but email addresses, webpages and telephone numbers change, and even the names of hotels, businesses and sometimes those of streets do.

In other words, we will try our best to make sure that the entries are not only as correct as possible (as in the correct location), but also as actual as possible (as in the address and additional information). Of course, we cannot guarantee that each and every entry is actual or correct, this is near impossible with thousands of entries, but our system of verificiation and confirmation will keep the error rate considerably low.
Our goal is to offer a limited amount of actual and correct information rather than a lot of fuzzy and outdated ones.

As of this writing, there is no other map or directory existing which includes as much information about the hotels of Tunisia as ours. Right now, of the ca. 1100 hotels of Tunisia, we have located about half of them on the map and obtained verified information of around 800 of them. We also are listing all Golf courses, all airports, most archeological sites and national parks, and a lot of the train, bus and louage stations of at least the most important cities.