It has taken a long time, but finally the Guide’s Continental European section of the website is under way. More than 20 Paris hotels have now gone up on the GHG website, such as the Hôtel Caron de Beaumarchais pictured above.

Over the next few months, we plan to put up on the GHG website 500 recommended hotels in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and other European countries. You can see a preview of the first Paris hotels here.

And please send us your comments and your reviews.

Since we stopped publishing our European print edition ten years ago, there has been a dearth of reliable information about European hotels. We believe that our new Continental European section fills a gap. Indeed many of our readers have continued to use the last GHG 2005 edition, out-of-date though it is.

Why has it taken us so long to fill this vacuum? We have found it hard to come up with a financially viable plan that at the same time preserves the essential qualities of the Guide, especially its independence and reputation for accuracy.

The business model we have come up with is not ideal, but we hope it will provide the basis for a useful Continental European section. As most readers will know, hotels and B&Bs get into the British print edition on their merit – they don’t pay for their print entry, they pay only if they want to be on the GHG website.

That model has had to be adapted for our new European section. European hotels that appear on it will be selected by us on the same basis as the British Guide, but they will either pay an annual fee or give commission on guests who book either through us or via a third party agent.. For this to work, we will need the cooperation of hotels and lots of reports from readers. Please help us launch this exciting new venture. We are determined to make it work. The more reports we get the more reliable its recommendations will be.

Check out the best hotels in France here.