Imagine investing over us$10 million into an idea that you’re certain is going to fly – only to find out that Microsoft supremo Bill Gates had the same idea.

That’s what has happened to Leisureplan, a London-based company co-owned by travel giant Thomas Cook and electronic firms Philips Media and Twine Media.

In an attempt to grow their international travel Web site, Leisureplan came to town last month to invite Canadian hotels, tourist attractions, car rental companies and travel suppliers to join – and pay nothing for a year.

‘We want to get Canadians on board as soon as possible,’ said Leisureplan communications manager Willem Eksteen when visiting Toronto.

By offering a free basic listing, which includes text and graphics, Leisureplan hopes to increase the breadth of its site of 3,000 listings to encompass over 100,000 listings by the end of next year.

Naturally, Leisureplan allows companies to upgrade their listing – for a price. us$100, for example, will buy a business its own e-mail address with a customer feedback area resembling a hotel’s visitor’s book, and us$420 will get a business its own home page with full text listing, eight graphic images, a Web address and priority call-up.

However, what Leisureplan clearly didn’t count on was going head-to-head with Microsoft.

The company that turns everything it touches into gold is investing $200 million – 20 times that of Leisureplan – into its travel service.

It, too, is offering a free basic listing to tens of thousands of hotels and it, too, plans to go worldwide this fall.

Furthermore, Microsoft will package the service into all future versions of the Windows operating system.

While Leisureplan is primarily targeting the leisure traveller over the business traveller, Microsoft is after both.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company just penned a deal with American Express Co. of New York to create an on-line travel booking service for corporations.

At press time, no Canadian hotels had signed on with Leisureplan and company heads were busy travelling through the u.s. and mainland Europe trying to drum up business.

A spokesperson from Canadian Pacific Hotels and Resorts says that neither company had approached the hotel chain but there would be no conflict in signing on with both – if the listings were free.

cp has already invested in its Web site, so there would be no reason to pay any additional money to get on-line, according to the CP representative.