Mr. and Mrs. Smith wrote the book on weekend trysts

IF you and your special someone go to a hotel in Prague, Czech Republic, but don’t want anyone to know, the name to register under is “Pan a Pani Novak.” In Paris, check in as “Monsieur et Madame Dupont.” In Milan, Italy, make it “Signor e Signora Rossi.”

This is just one of the helpful hints in “The Smiths’ Hotel Collection Europe,” one of two new English travel guides created by a couple that have checked into hundreds of hotels undercover.

Their real names are Tamara Heber-Percy and James Lohan, and they came up with the idea for their sexy guides after a weekend getaway to the English Lake District. They had reserved a room at a hotel that sounded perfect in the guidebook but turned out to have all the aphrodisiac charm of a retirement home.

When they returned home to London, they decided to write a hotel guide that would help discriminating couples find the right places to sneak away for the weekend.

Their first book on hotels in Britain and Ireland was a self-published hit in 2003 that sold 20,000 copies in the first three months. The next year, they came out with their European cities collection, followed by the launching of a website (www.mrandmrssmith.com) offering Internet booking, discounts and special hotel extras to Mr. and Mrs. Smith members. Both books are available in the U.S., and a volume on American hotels is in the works, scheduled for publication in 2007.

Heber-Percy, 32, an Oxford graduate who worked in marketing, and Lohan, 35, founder of a hip London event planning company called Atomic, enlisted a cadre of young English style aficionados -- fashion designers, club owners, foodies and hoteliers -- to help them research and write the books.

Their mission is to get the real scoop by taking a weekend getaway at a hotel with their honey, doing so anonymously.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith guides tell people where to eat, shop, party and hang out. Tourist sights are also mentioned. But the books aren’t your mother’s Blue Guides. My mother always said it didn’t matter where one stayed in Prague or Paris or Edinburgh, Scotland. It does matter to Mr. and Mrs. Smith readers, who hope to go away and spend the whole weekend in the hotel room.

Delighted by the idea, I called Heber-Percy and Lohan, who are getting married next month but made time for a chat.

*

How did you get together?

Heber-Percy: We were on holiday in Spain and met in a bar. I thought it might be just a holiday romance, but he called the day after I got home. Now we’ve been together for nine years.

*

When’s the wedding?

Heber-Percy: July 15 at the Ca’s Xorc Hotel in Majorca [Spain]. It has incredible views.

*

Do the two of you look for the same things in a hotel?

Lohan: The experience has to be good for both the boy and the girl. I get excited by the Bang & Olufsen TV; she’s into bath salts. But we both want comfortable beds, good places to eat and bathtubs big enough to stretch out in.

Heber-Percy: That’s why it’s important for our reviewers to visit hotels in couples. We want the stories of their weekends. Lots of hotel guidebooks are written by “Clipboard Charlies.” I have this vision of a little man in a restaurant on a Monday night, drinking water to save money, ticking off boxes, not really experiencing the place the way people do.

Lohan: We tell our reviewers to have fun and write the kind of reports you’d get from a good friend. I find that websites, advertisements and articles lie. With the right copy and photographs, you can make anything look good. And if the management knows you’re there to write a review, you can have a totally different experience from that of regular guests.

*

Your books are geared to short breaks. Do you think that’s the way most people travel?

Lohan: Everybody’s so busy these days, they can’t afford to take [long] vacations. They don’t want to come back to a mountain of work.... Then, too, with Ryanair and EasyJet, it’s cheap to travel in Europe. You can get to Barcelona [from London] for $50. People don’t mind going cattle-class. Then they spend more on hotels.

*

Do you think these people really plan to stay in their rooms the whole time?

Lohan: Some of the more energetic Mr. and Mrs. Smiths might. These days, hotels are designed with the couple in mind. They’re so much better than home. They have big TVs around every corner. People come to your room to give you a massage. They serve your dinner on the terrace.

Heber-Percy: I have a friend who is going away for the weekend. It’s the first time she’ll be apart from her child. What she wants is

*

In America, it seems women are more interested in romantic getaways than men. Is that different in the U.K.?

Heber-Percy: I find it hard to believe that a man wouldn’t want to spend time with his partner in an amazing place, especially if it has a big bed.

Lohan: The French claim they invented the dirty weekend. But we [Englishmen] like to date our girls a few times and then take them away to some great country house hotel, like they do in “Bridget Jones.”

*

So that whole no-sex-please-we’re-British thing is outdated?

Heber-Percy: Before, no one wanted to talk about it. But if a couple is going away, it’s there. What are they going to do -- sit and tell stories? Sex is a big part of it, and hotels should make you feel that way.

*

Susan Spano’s “Postcards From Paris” is at latimes.com/susanspano.