Ever been in a hotel and looked at the exchange rate they're offering to convert your pounds to their local currency, and shuddered? Or looked at the rates offered by hotels in England and wondered if they're ripping off the overseass visitor?

Well - the boot's on the other foot now as we work out what to do at Well House Manor. I don't see currency exchange as a big market for us, but I do feel we should be able to accept payment in US Dollars and Euros if that's how the customer wishes to pay.

Our first step against the normal is to admit, quite openly, that our exchange rate sucks when compared to that offered by the banks or credit card companies, and to suggest to our clients that they should use those alternatives if possible.

Second step - to have an exchange rate that does update reasonably often. We can do that automatically by using the exchange rates from an xml file that's offered on the web by the European Central Bank at http://www.ecb.int/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml - updated daily, it provides central rates to and from Euros and by double-converting (not a problem as we're using central rates) we can come up with a dynamic exchange rate page.

Here's the Hotel exchange rate page that we'll be using at Well House Manor. If you're operating a hotel too, you're welcome to point people at that page or to develop your own. In fact, our exchange rate code might be more generally useful. See here for a source code listing to help you get started.
(written 2006-09-21)

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