OWNERS of Lake District bed and breakfast accommodation are rallying to regain profits taken from them by online booking agencies charging high rates of commission.

Businesses in Windermere and Bowness are setting up a website to enable potential visitors to search for accommodation in the area and book direct.

At the moment, small accommodation providers have to pay large online booking agencies such as booking.com, Expedia and Laterooms in return for advertising vacancies on their sites.

Tony Blaney, who runs Fairfield House in Bowness, said: "Online agencies now dominate the bookings on rooms. The commissions eat into the profits of B&B owners and they are frustrated.

"They take typically about 20 per cent which means after VAT of 16 per cent it is really starting eat seriously into profit.

"As a result B&Bs are having to eat into other budgets and the budget that gets hit the most is the one used for refurbishments and repairs. A lot of B&Bs need to do an annual refurb and that is not sustainable in the long term.

"Customers have access to reviews and have a check first and vote with their feet. Any criticism is highly visible and accessible to all of the world.

"The B&B stock is the predominant supplier of beds in the Lake District and it will do damage to the area if B&Bs don't provide tip top service."

The businesses behind the group are all contributing to the creation of the website. It has been calculated that each businesses would only need to get one direct booking per month through the system for the project to pay for itself.

Mr Blaney added: "We are not going to take on the power of the likes of booking.com. But what we can do is encourage people through talking to visitors and local businesses and residents to, wherever possible, book local or book direct.

"The idea is to create a group where people can go and see what is available and all of the accommodation near them. They can check the price and make bookings like they would with agencies, but they can do it directly.

"Our bill last year to the agencies was £20,000. If you times that by the thousands of B&Bs and hotels in the Lake District you can see the agencies are making a huge dent in the money available in the area.

"A lot of the money that we would be spending on refurbishment would be used on local companies. But the money is going off to businesses from the States instead. As long as this happens we are going to suffer."

Yana Miall, who runs Holly-Wood House in Windermere, said: "We have very small margins and anything we can do to save is good. This is no different from looking for a different electricity or broadband supplier.

"We are just doing it as a small group, trying to cut costs and increase profit. It is another channel for bookings."