Most of the big commercial sites will book you into a concrete hotel next to the airport or an international Hilton. Finding somewhere more pleasant is not particularly hard, but you may prefer to e-mail, fax or telephone the hotel with credit card details if you are unsure about the site itself.
Concierge
Listing places for less than £200 a night in the more desirable parts of Europe, the Condé Nast Traveller site includes the magazine's Hot List of top hotels and extracts from Fodor's guides.
About.com
About.com hires an "expert" in each subject to find and review sites. As a result, the accommodation guides are better informed and each country has a number of excellent suggestions. Have a look here for, say, Greek hotel recommendations or small inns in Heidelberg.
Logis de France
The green and yellow chimney symbol of the Logis de France indicates that a hotel aims to be as friendly as a bed and breakfast but offers some of the same facilities as a hotel. Providing you know which part of France you want to stay in, this site is an excellent source.
Chalet Sauvageonne
A one-off investment of £15,000 will buy you a stake in this 12-bedroom catered chalet near Chamonix, 45 minutes from Geneva airport. This enables you to negotiate stays with other members, reserving in advance or staying at short notice. The Sauvageonne is included in this list for two specific reasons: first, because the new owners are looking for syndicate members via the web, and second because I have just spent a wonderful few days there.
Italy Hotel Reservation
Hundreds of hotels, many with their own websites and glorious photos, can be booked online here. IHR also claims to be the first hotel site to offer bookings via WAP. In addition, for alluring three- and four-star Tuscan hotels described in detail, visit www.tuscanyonline.it/accommod/hotel.htm .
Visit Sweden
Sweden has embraced the web with great enthusiasm, and this is an admirably efficient website where you can search for hotels by region and keyword.
Site of the week: www.leisurehunt.com
Anything to do with the Countryside Alliance?
Not at all. It's a hotel search and booking service. Leisure Hunt lists hotels from all over the world. The blurb on the front claims to recognise "towns and villages worldwide". This is something of an exaggeration, although it does hold true for the US and Britain: the UK has 33,000 listings. As an indication, Leisure Hunt lists five hotels in Warsaw, all of them sizeable and one of them not built from concrete. All the entries are illustrated and have star ratings.
On the other hand...
Only a very small selection of hotels are discounted, and on the days I visited the special offers were confined to British chains. Nor were they particularly cheap - a 15% discount on a three-night stay in Oasis Village Lakeland in Penrith, for example, reduced the price to £277.
Can I book?
That depends on the hotel. Some of them are linked to the SpeedBook network; others have to be contacted individually.
I'm not very excited.
The art of building a successful travel site lies in building up a database and manipulating it successfully. Leisure Hunt has managed the former, but they haven't put much effort into the latter. The result is a flat, lifeless endeavour which, while it functions perfectly adequately, is unlikely to inspire visitors. For purposeful travellers only.
