Hotels are not charged for an entry in the print edition. Those selected by the Guide for a print entry are eligible to appear on the GHG website for which a web fee is charged. If a selected hotel does not want to be on the web, its entry is linked to a third-party booking agent, Booking.com.

The entries cover the best hotels, most of them owner-managed, in the UK and Ireland. 

Adam & Caroline Raphael, who own the GHG, are award-winning journalists. Ian Belcher, a well-known travel writer, edits the British Guide. Niki Davies is in charge of the Shortlist selection and readers’ correspondence.

Entries are based on comments from readers who write to us about their good and bad experiences at hotels and B&Bs. We also get reports from our team of inspectors who stay anonymously at the Guide’s expense.

The entries are updated continuously on this website. The printed Guide is published annually in October. Each year there is a considerable turnover usually more than 10%: hotels are dropped if they change hands or if there is a decline in standards.

In addition to its coverage of hotels, the Guide campaigns on various issues including service charges, tipping, deposits and background music.

Every year the Guide gives awards, called Césars, to 10 hotels in various categories, and plaques are presented to the winning hoteliers at a publication launch party. There are also prizes for those readers who submit the best reports.

Yes, please email us. Readers’ reviews are the lifeblood of the Guide. There are many blank areas on our maps. We are particularly glad to receive reports on hotels in a city, a town or a region that is poorly represented.

Only about two thirds of the entries of our selected hotels appear on the website. In the printed Guide there are discount vouchers worth £150 which entitle readers at participating hotels to get a discount of 25% off the Bed & Breakfast rate.

We track our readers opinions and have been doing so for more than 30 years. The fact that we are independent mean that we can call it like it is. No hotel can buy an entry in the printed Guide or on the website.

“We have long regarded the Guide as the bible of the industry”
Christopher Davy, the Rose and Crown Inn, Romaldkirk.

For more testimonials go here.

“It’s about as honest as a hotel guide can be”
The Sunday Times.

For more testimonials from the media go here.

“No one in their right mind would go near a hotel without your advice.”
David Taylor

For more comments go here.

We ask them to do so because it helps creates a virtuous circle of more readers and more reports. But some hotels which have had an entry in the Guide for years have never bought a copy from us.

The Guide has two types of entry, Full and Shortlist. The Shortlist complements our main section by including interesting new entrants and a selection of appropriate places in areas where we have limited choice.

The only hotels that appear on the website are those that are willing to pay a fee to defray development and running costs. Some of our selected hotels, choose to appear only in the print edition of the Guide.

Hotels in the print and web voucher schemes agree to give readers a discount of 25% (print),10% (web) from their B&B rates. Hotels have discretion to refuse a voucher booking at the time of reservation if they expect to be fully booked.

They are recommended by readers whose opinions are carefully tracked to exclude collusive reports. If a hotel or B&B appears promising, it will also often be anonymously inspected by one of our editors who will dine and stay at the Guide’s expense

Contact us and tell us about your hotel and its ethos and why it would belong in the Guide. We are always looking for new discoveries. We might send inspectors, but we won’t tell you they are coming. See: https://www.goodhotelguide.com/for-hoteliers/

Ballymaloe in County Cork, Ireland.