Be very wary of anyone who wants you to pay a fee upfront for the hundreds of bookings they say they will bring you this is RUBBISH! I only deal with agencies who work on a commission only basis i.e. they get a percentage of any rooms they sell for you. This way they have an incentive to work for you and get you lots of bookings and get them for a good price. My father asked me what I thought about Infotel they were asking for an upfront fee and promising a large number of bookings I warned him against them on the basis that once they had his money they had no incentive to drive business his way. In a year we had one booking from them as they only wanted rooms when we were full anyway he complained and finally got his money back for breach of promise but it was a long and drawn out process.

People from many and various local papers will ring to persuade you to advertise with them. My advice here is to pick and choose carefully. My parents when in conversation with a guest he recommended we advertise in the magazine which related to the show he was attending to do with small animals this cost £15.00 and generated a full house of guests who returned up to date three years running in a very quiet time of year. These special interest magazines can be useful if you have for example good fishing etc near to you and sometimes newspapers can generate good results but don’t spend too much money if you have never heard of a particular paper as it is unlikely to have a very large circulation.