One of the wonder cities of the US, New York is, for some, the highest in rank urban tourist attractions of the country. If it's not the sky scrapers that call you there, it must be the fashion and shopping sensation, or in some more particular circumstances (which is mine and my friends Cristina's), the desire to march on the street of New York as Luis de Funes and his subordinates did in the famous comedy movie Le Gendarme a New York.

If you leave on a different continent, such a trip may sound out of the ordinary, but it will surely cost a lot. So why not saving some money for visiting and shopping by looking for cheap hotels to book your stay at? You have plenty of New York hotels to choose from. Try some recommendations, search by number of stars and make sure to specify your arrival and departure dates correctly. You can also review the displayed list of hotels from New York and compare them by location or advertised price.

Should you like to recommend the Hotel Club online reservations to friends or business partners who do not speak English, there are 13 other languages available, including French, German, Italian, Japanese and Chinese. Now that you know where to book your stay, you can go on and plan the rest of your vacation details.

Stumbling upon AccomLine is great from that point of view, especially when you are looking for Amsterdam accommodation. While browsing through their site, I noticed they provide their service in 13 languages. I always pay attention to such details as I know how important localization is. You cannot risk loosing customers over language barriers.

To select your hotel, you can either choose from the recommended hotels, or pick depending on the desired number of stars. An additional rating is displayed for each hotel on the list, along with its location. Therefore, if you need to be accommodated in a precise area, use these details to help you decide.

What I don't really like is that prices are not displayed for all the hotels. Regardless of the reason, this shows a certain lack of transparency. Also, I have noticed a very complete search box on the AccomLine home page, which is not also transferred to the local Amsterdam dedicated page. True, there aren't as many locations and hotels, but it would make locating your Amsterdam accommodation mush easier.

AccomLine also offers additional services which can make your planning seem faster and less complicated. Apart from hotel reservations, they also provide insurance services, flight and car bookings and even sightseeing tips.

Brought by AccomLine.

I have given up making holiday plans through agencies for some time now. They have standard offers only, and at least in Romania, they seem to be highly inflexible. So now I employ a different procedure: I make my plans, choose the destination, then decide how to get there (car, plane, bus) and finally make my hotel reservation online.

Besides offering the opportunity to book hotels while benefiting from important discounts, HotelReservations.com offers complete services, helping you book a flight to get to your hotel, to rent a car while staying there or to choose entire vacation packages. The site is available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish and is further localized on a per-country base, allowing quick searches for country such as Germany, Canada, Austria and many more. You can also opt for single bookings or group bookings, a special phone number being available for the latter.

I really loved their multiple browsing opportunities when looking for a hotel, motel or a resort. You can search by city, by country or choose to type the exact location and select exact dates for your stay. There are many possibilities to explore and the maps offered are pretty comprehensive. Which is really important, as finding and address in a city you've just gotten into can sometimes be a real challenge.

Paying opportunities are not limited, you can choose any type of card you like: Visa, MasterCard or American Express. What I also think is very important is the fact that phone numbers are available 24/7. Issues occur at any time, therefore such a service should weigh a lot when making booking decisions.

There are also a few things HotelReservations.com could improve. One is more of a personal taste suggestion: the color palette. Gray shades on white do not really agree with me and create a poor contrast, not really catching your eye. The other suggestion is for a more technical aspect. While providing Italian, German and French versions of their site, which I think is great for attracting customers who have little knowledge of English, only Spanish and English are available in the language selection menu. Also, the selection flag images can fail in generating results.

While analyzing the many pros of HotelReservations.com, I am pretty sure that they have good odds of becoming the online booking site for hotels around the world. A great pricing policy, doubled by efficient customer support can easily turn HotelReservations.com into a reference point for online touristic services.

My next unbooked holiday is for New Year's. I am sure to check their site before making any plans.

Entry sponsored by HotelReservations.com

Foreigners or Romanians living abroad always say Romanian hotels belonging to international chains have high prices. Higher than in other capitals around Europe. I always wondered why this policy was accepted. Wouldn't foreigners be reluctant to pay more for the same services? Well, first I thought most customers of 4-5 stars hotels are business tourists. So they couldn't care less about prices. Another fact just caught my attention today. This pricing policy is really working:

Out of the 32 hotels operated by the Marriott group within continental Europe, the JW Marriott hotel in Bucharest is among the top five contributors to the group's turnover, says Kurt Strohmayer, general manager of the hotel.

"Contrary to the general opinion, the most profitable hotels are not those in Western Europe. The hotels that contribute the most to the group's business, with the exception of the American market, are those in Russia, followed by those in Eastern Europe", Strohmayer says.

Last year, the five-star hotel posted 38.5 million-euro turnover and 16-million euro profit. On the local market, JW Marriott leads the ranking of most profitable hotels, according to financial information provided by Societatea Companiilor Hoteliere Grand, the company managing the hotel.

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