The company was founded in 1999 in Cambridge England by a group of Oxford PhDs. The management team started their business by building websites with booking capabilities for guesthouses in the English countryside. Guesthouses are small hotels similar to bed and breakfasts in the small towns and villages that dot the United Kingdom's landscape. As the sales team visited the inns and hotels, they noticed that most of these properties did not have a marketing arrangement with any outside party. At first, they connected the suppliers with WorldRes, another online booking service. Gradually, they realized that they could build an online connection themselves, so they build out an extranet for inventory and an online transaction service. They were off to a flying start.

What the folks from Cambridge realized early on was that other websites were going to be able to market their hotel inventory far better than them, so the Active Hotels team became an affiliate technology provider. The affiliate platform grew quickly, just as the hotels.com IAN platform had grown in the US.

Today, Active Hotels is one of Europe’s leading online reservation providers to the hotel industry. The company has over 10,000 hotels (coverage ranges from B&Bs and guesthouses to 5-star quality leisure and corporate hotels in the major European capitals as well as other popular regions throughout Europe), which it promotes across 1,500 websites, including many of the market leaders in online travel. ActiveHotels currently sells over 2 million hotel room nights per year. More impressively, Active Hotels' reservation services are available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

One of the recent changes in Active's history was it's acquisition by US dotcom survivor priceline in a cash transaction valued at approximately US$161 million. The company's growth trajectory was a major reason why the folks at priceline reached into their back pockets.

ActiveHotels.com website is a portal where their affiliates can check their stats. Consumers who'd like to purchase should head to activereservations.com. Although this site violates one of the Travelsites' team's cardinal design rules (It has way too many colors on the website), it's a great option for those who are looking to book a hotel in London, Paris, or any of the country towns in England. As the website tells you, you can book any of 10,000 European Hotels. Most of these properties are only available on Active and their affiliate websites, so don't bother checking Expedia or Travelocity. These hotels offer ActiveReservation customers a great value. They offer special online prices (up to 70% off standard rates), plus exclusive deals and special offers. Also, ActiveReservations has unique hotel review content. Currently the site has over 160,000 unbiased comments from real guests and hundreds more are added each day. These unfiltered comments offer you a great look into what real people think about hotels where you might stay. Lastly, the site is built for easy of use. According to the site's own customers, people find it easy to search, choose and book. In fact, 97% of Active Hotels customers would book online again. Give it a try!

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