How we verify every pool

Here is the industry's awkward secret: there is no reliable “private pool” label in the data hotels and villas are sold with. Suppliers flag a generic “pool” — which can just as easily mean a shared resort basin, a paid spa, or a room overlooking somebody else's water. So we built our own verification, and no villa appears on SplashVillas until it has passed it.

The four steps

1. We analyse the full inventory. For every villa we read everything its supplier publishes: unit names, long descriptions, the structured amenity codes (including the few that genuinely mean “private pool”), and the photos. A private pool is never assumed — it has to be positively proven by these signals, in English and French wording alike.
2. We read the rates and units line by line. A property often sells several units — the pool villa, and the cheaper garden room behind it. We match every bookable rate to the exact unit it belongs to, so the price you see is always the price of a private-pool stay, never a cheaper poolless room dressed up as the headline price.
3. We exclude by default. Doubt disqualifies. A generic name, “pool access” phrasing, a pool-view room, an “A or B with pool” menu — anything ambiguous keeps the villa off the site. Our working rule is simple: if we are not sure, we do not list it.
4. We lock it again at booking. Verification does not stop at the listing. When you book, each rate must independently prove it is the private-pool unit. If only a poolless room is left for your dates, we show “no availability” — we never quietly substitute another room.

And because inventory changes daily, the checks run continuously: every refresh of a villa's data goes back through the same rules, and the rules themselves are tested against hundreds of real units and tightened every time we find an edge case.

What we exclude

• Shared, communal or “sharing” pools — the resort pool is not your pool.
• “Pool access” — usually a shared facility, sometimes a paid one.
• Pool-view and poolside rooms — overlooking a pool is not owning one.
• Shared jacuzzis and communal hot tubs.
• Hotel rooms, suites and apartments inside a property whose pool belongs to every guest.
• Listings that explicitly state they have no pool, even when sold next to one.

Our commitment

No automated check of supplier data is perfect, so here is the honest version: if you ever arrive at a villa booked on SplashVillas and the pool is not the private one we promised, tell us at hello@splashvillas.com. We will investigate, fix or delist the villa, and work with you to put your stay right. The same rule that built this site applies to us afterwards too: if we are not sure, we do not list.