WEB BOOKINGS:IRELAND'S BIGGEST B&B organisation, The Town & Country Homes Association, has launched a multilingual website and booking engine.
The service allows international and Irish visitors to book their entire B&B holiday on one visit to the site, taking in as many locations as they wish.
According to Town & Country Homes, the new site is more user-friendly, and offers more information and services in Spanish, French, German and Italian, as well as in English.
Kate Burns, the organisation's chairwoman, says that the B&B sector is facing major challenges because of the decline in regional and rural tourism and that the new website and booking engine are part of its response.
"Around 70 per cent of B&B guests are from overseas, and because a growing proportion of their holidays are booked online we have to accommodate that," she said.
"People prefer to know right away if there is a vacancy and to make bookings at one sitting, rather than e-mailing and waiting for a reply. The new booking engine responds to that, so we have seen an immediate rise in live bookings."