AN accommodation listings website says booking enquiries for the Lakes have doubled in the past few months, despite the economic climate.

Towards the end of 2008, there was an increase of nearly ten thousand booking enquiries on iknow-lakedistrict.co.uk, and the site has already received fifteen thousand visitors in the first week of January.

“We put the increase down to a combination of two things; more people choosing to holiday in the UK and the increasing prominence of the iknow sites. This combination led to an unbelievable number of enquiries at the beginning of 2008 and this trend continued throughout the year,” said iknow managing director, Marcus Simmons.

“We heard from a local MP recently that some of his hotel-owning constituents had seen a fall of 40 per cent in their bookings in the final quarter of 2008. Our members have seen an increase of 50 per cent on last year’s enquiries – so we must be doing something right. We’ve even had 168 booking enquiries for visits to the Lakes in December 2009.”

For more information on iknow, or to arrange a free trial, visit www.iknow-uk.com/free-trial or call 0871 871 0851.