London Hotel Blog

 During winter, when there are coughs and colds around, it’s a relief to escape the confines of the tube and walk around in the fresh air instead.  And during summer, when the sun is shining, it’s no fun to be trapped underground in a sweaty, stuffy train.  If you add to that rising fares, delays and pollution, there are plenty of good reasons to cut your tube journey short and walk between stations instead.  I’m sure more people would do it if they realised how close together some of the stations are.  It takes much less time than you would think and, in some cases, is actually quicker than taking the tube.

But it can be hard to find information about this, especially for visitors to the city.  London Underground has signs on Piccadilly Line trains encouraging passengers to get off at Holborn or Leicester Square and walk to Covent Garden.  But this is simply to tackle overcrowding, and they don’t encourage walking anywhere else.  I suppose it’s not really in their interests!

One problem is that the tube map is designed for clarity rather than geographical accuracy, so it distorts the distances between stations.  Rodcorp has added lines to the map showing all the stops that are less than 500 metres apart on the ground.  This is a good reference which alerts you, at a glance, to where it would probably be quicker to walk.  

If you’re looking for more detailed information about how long it takes to walk between stations, you can thank students at Central Saint Martin’s College.  They have timed all the journeys in Zone 1 on foot and mapped the results.  To achieve these times, you need to be going along at a brisk pace rather than having a leisurely stroll!  But sometimes the beauty of walking is that you get to see and enjoy things you would have missed if you’d stayed underground.  You experience and understand more of the city, and get to know it better.

Getting fit is another good reason to walk.  There are clear health benefits from keeping active and hopping off a couple of stops early each day could help you lose weight gained from those little excesses.  A man can burn off the calories in a pint of beer by walking between Waterloo and Bermondsey, and a woman can burn off the calories from a glass of wine by walking from Waterloo to Leicester Square.

If this seems like a good incentive to walk, you might like to consult the tube map drawn up by PruHealth.  It shows the number of steps between stations, calculated by volunteers wearing pedometers.  To cut our risk of getting strokes, heart disease and cancer, the British Heart Foundation says we should walk 10,000 steps a day, so how many could you clock up if you got off the tube?

If you’re unsure about directions you can check your route on Walk It  before you leave the house.  For those who are planning to foot it around a bit, I’d recommend getting a folded paper pocket-sized map of the centre of the city.  You can buy them for a pound or so at most tube stations and it’s much easier than lugging around a big A-Z.

Celebrate afternoon Tea at The Goring Hotel London this Christmas for a little extra festive twist. Tea is set against the sparkling backdrop of the hotels newly refurbished Terrace, Bar and Lounge. The Goring Christmas Tea begins with a festive Christmas Champagne Cocktail followed by a selection of freshly cut sandwiches, homemade scones, mince pies, and homemade Christmas cake and pastries, all priced at £29.00 per person. Mmmmm!!

If your question is not listed below, please refer to http://www.tubehotels.com/affiliates.html where you should find answers, for any questions that you can’t find answers for please add a comment below and we will email you the answer.

Q. Can I get a list of all TubeHotels pages and banners for my site

A. Yes we have a list of all the pages you can link as well as various banners on the TubeHotels affiliate blog. http://www.tubehotels.com/blog/affiliates/banners/

Q. How many sales will I make

A. Our conversion rate depends on the quality of traffic that is sent across, the TubeHotels site converts at 4.5%, this is very good as the average travel industry conversion rate is 1.5%.

Q. How do I track my referrals and sales

A. We have built an in house tracking system which allows you to view all referrals, searches and sales in real time, this can be accessed by siging into the TubeHotels back office

Q. LateRooms pay me 5% commission on bookings, why should I change to TubeHotels who pay 3%.

A. LateRooms are a great company, this is why we include them on our site. We also compare 8 other companies and we sell lots of hotels through them also. Comparing 9 hotel companies gives:

1. More hotels to choose from
2. More availabilty on required hotels
3. More prices on hotels, getting the user the best price available
4. More bookings for your site. The TubeHotels site converts at 4.5%, beating the average travel industry conversion rate of 1.5%.
5. All LateRooms hotels are included in our searches.
6. Location based search and map. The user can see exactly where they will be staying and also how far they are from the nearest Tube station.

For the best conversions, sales and profits, we recommend linking to pages within our site from relevant pages on your site. This helps your users get straight to the page they want and removes any hurdles that might otherwise have stood in the way of them making a hotel booking. 

For example, linking your page on Covent Garden to our Covent Garden page will produce more sales than if you linked to our homepage. It may sound like a small and easy task for a user to move from our homepage to our Covent Garden page but why make users work – make it as easy as possible for them!

Here is a spreadsheet of all hotels on TubeHotels.com.

And here is a list of London Underground, DLR and train stations.

Link to the pages in these spreadsheets from your website and we will credit sales to your affiliate account.

Here is a list of London Underground, DLR and train stations featured on TubeHotels.com – add links from your website to any page in this list and we will credit sales to your affiliate account.

TubeHotels station list

51 Buckingham Gate’s South Indian restaurant, Quilon has received the ultimate culinary accolade – a Michelin star.

In the latest Michelin guide Quilon is one of five London restaurants to be awarded their first Michelin stars. Quilon is only the fifth Indian restaurant in the capital to win the honour and is the only South Indian restaurant in the whole of the UK.

Compare prices and book rooms at 51 Buckingham Gate or read more information on Quilon restaurant. 

Start your engines for the British International Motor Show taking place from July 22nd to August 3rd at Excel London.

Thousands of tickets have already been sold for the multi award-winning motor show which after a long spell in Birmingham has finally returned to London after 30 years. The two week motoring extravaganza expects to attract over half a million people, making it the biggest show in the UK.

When visiting London for the motor show, you could stay in hotels near London Excel. However, there isn’t much in the way of entertainment / facilities in Docklands so TubeHotels recommends staying in central London accommodation and travelling to the show each day on the tube.

For more information on the show, visit www.britishmotorshow.co.uk

Set to open in June 2008, the £180 million Sofitel London Heathrow T5 will be one of the largest luxury airport hotels. Directly connected to Terminal 5 via a link bridge, the 605-bedroom hotel will be a great addition to an already impressive range of London Heathrow hotels.

Sofitel London Heathrow is instantly recognisable by its five towering steel and glass atriums, and will become a spectacular addition to Heathrow’s skyline. Focusing on the concept of ‘the gateway to the world’ as the design inspiration, KCA International Designers (who have previously designed interiors for Burj Al Arab, Dubai and Four Seasons Hotel, Hong Kong) will embrace the theme of Continent and Country throughout the property. Antarctica will take the central focus in the hotel’s reception areas with a dramatic water fountain centrepiece, cascading out from a mirrored ceiling onto floodlit ice blocks, funnelling refractive light on the surrounding surfaces. The adjoining public areas will carry through the continents theme to encompass Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

The hotel’s four room categories include Classic, Superior, Luxury and Suites, all complete with the signature Sofitel MyBed, ensuring guests the most comfortable night’s sleep possible. Triple-glazed windows will guarantee absolute silence throughout bedrooms, with many rooms offering commanding views of the airport and internal gardens. Each room will be individually styled with contemporary aesthetics appealing to both business and leisure travellers. The hotel will feature no fewer than 52 Suites ranging from Sofitel, Prestige, Opera to the presidential grandeur of the Imperial Suite – measuring 165 square meters.

As soon as this hotel can be booked on TubeHotels.com we will let you know! In the meantime, compare rates and choose another Heathrow airport hotel.

Hyde Park Gate has just completed a multi-million pound refurbishment.

Set within three imposing Victorian houses, Hyde Park Gate was built in 1864 and many of the original features have been retained over the years. The apartments are the most prestigious in the Capital, and in hotel terms equate with London’s grandest five-star establishments. The new designs encompass this splendour and are elegant and classic, with a focus on creating timeless, traditional English surroundings. For more information visit www.chevalgroup.com