A DARLINGTON-BASED hotel booking firm could be in line for a sixth business award within 12 months.

Gillian Chapple, founder of Bedsearcher, has been nominated for a category at this year's North East Woman Entrepreneur Awards.

She is in line to scoop the North-East Young Entrepreneur and Woman in IT award at a ceremony to be held at the Hilton Hotel, in Gateshead.

Bedsearcher has already won the Visa Innovation award, the Everywoman award, the Shine Travel and Tourism award, Teesside ITC of the Year award and North East ITC of the Year award.

Ms Chapple hopes this nomination will make it a sixth award.

She said: "It is great to be nominated for awards, as this is recognition for our hard work and the success that the company is seeing, but it's always nice to win as well."

Bedsearcher launched in May 2002 and now offers a wide distribution of online bookable hotels in the UK, with nearly 10,000 properties on its books.

The company has grown 25-fold over the last 12 months and expects to continue over the next year.

Managing director Jim Mann said: "A recent launch into Western Europe has gone well and we are hoping to expand to offer worldwide bookings before the end of 2007."

The winner will be announced on Friday, November 18.