Ask Your Contact
Chances are that you know somebody living at the place you are going to visit. If that is true, you can ask your contact to book a decent hotel for you. Communicate clearly, what kind of hotel you are looking for. Otherwise it could happen that you find yourself in the perfect hotel, but way out of your budget. Or you could end up in a hotel with quite reasonable rates, but lacking services like internet access or sport facilities. That can be annoying and expensive if you need them.

Always Book Hotels in Advance
If you do not have the luxury to ask a contact person familiar with your travel destination for a recommendation, you have other options.

1. You can do a web search for hotels at your travel destination, and give the hotel you chose a call.
2. A huge variety of hotel booking websites is at your service.
3. If you do not want to waste your time with researching hotels through the internet, use your travel agent.

Important thing: Do an advance reservation. Do not travel and look for a hotel after you reached your destination, if you are not keen to pay the highest available rate the hotel has listed. Hotel owners know that it is expensive and time consuming to shop for a room to stay, if you are a stranger in a city. If you want to get a reasonable room for a reasonable price, you must do hotel reservations before you travel.

Hotel Booking Websites
Hotel booking services through the web will offer you many different hotels, ranging from the budget hotel in the industrial area outside the city up to the prestigious and comfortable 5-star hotel at the best available location. If you are looking for a decently priced hotel with standard facilities and services, and you are not travelling to the center of nowhere, a hotel booking website can be a perfect option.
For most hotel reservations you should enter your credit card information as a guarantee. This way you keep your room when you arrive late. If you do not show up, they will charge you one night. A reservation without guarantee will usually be canceled, if you did not arrive by 6 p.m. There is no cancellation fee without payment guarantee, but neither a room if you arrive late.

Special Offers and Booking through Tour Operators
For some special offers or during peak seasons like trade exhibitions or holidays there may a cancellation fee, and a deadline after which you cannot cancel your room. If you book your hotel through a tour operator as part of a vacation package, you may also face restrictive cancel policies. As usual: Check the fine print.

Luxury Hotels
If you look for your favorite luxury hotel in a booking engine, you may or may not find it. The very best hotels provide not only superb locations and excellent services. They are also choosy about their guests and use a very high published price as a first filter to keep unwanted persons away. References, e.g. via corporate contracts, can earn you a steep discount in the luxury hotel segment. If the hotel knows you already as a customer in good standing, you may also enjoy a steep discount from the published rack rates.
Some travel websites demand a best price guarantee from the hotels listed in their system. A manager who wants to hand-pick his hotel guests has a hard time to allow a booking agency any influence on his pricing policies. My advice: If you need hotel reservations for the luxury segment, use your corporate travel department or a travel agent who has access your corporate rate. If that is not possible, go for the low tech way and give your chosen hotel a call to ask for a room.