Businesses based in the Highlands and Islands have been congratulated by the area's enterprise network after taking four finalists' places in a Scotland-wide e-business competition.

Arran Aromatics scooped the major prize of best medium-sized business in this year's Winners@Web competition, organised by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

Dingwall-based Alaris Ltd was commended in its category of best e-trading.

Two other firms based in the Highlands and Islands also made it to the finals - Mapmaker Ltd, of Carradale, Kintyre and Loch Torridon Country House Hotel, Wester Ross.

The competition results were announced at a ceremony in Glasgow as the culmination of national e-business week, which aims to help Scottish businesses embrace new technology and access world markets through the internet.

Calum Davidson, HIE's head of knowledge economy, said the result showed that businesses in geographically remote areas are capable of leading the way in online trading.

"A competition like this is about judging quality rather than quantity," said Mr Davidson.

"The Highlands and Islands is home to less than ten per cent of Scotland's businesses, and the vast majority of our successful firms have fewer than 50 employees.

"But what we have in abundance, as these results show, is drive and vision to spare.  These are essential ingredients in any prosperous economy and both Arran Aromatics, as outright winner in its category, and the other three finalists from the Highlands and Islands deserve the highest praise for their achievement.

"The Highlands and Islands are punching above our weight in e-business and it's thanks to businesses like these that we're doing it."

Arran Aromatics,  have been making specialist body care products on the Isle of Arran since 1988. The Russell family purchased the derelict premises of The Home Farm, Brodick, and started making Arran Aromatics products a few months later. Today there are some 250 items over eight distinct ranges. The Arran Aromatics web shop came online in the autumn of 2001.

Alaris Ltd, a fitted kitchen and home furniture retail business, became an internet-only retailer in October 2001. Most of its products are stocked and delivered by third party distributors throughout the UK, although Alaris also stocks fragile products at its warehouse for crating to ensure safe delivery. Their monthly sales are of £230,000 and rising at 7% per month, of which customers order approximately 60% on line.

Mapmaker Ltd delivers a compact map creation service and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) service over the web. Set up in Cambridge in 1996, the company was able to relocate to Scotland without unsettling the day to day running of things in any way since business is exclusively conducted over the internet.

Loch Torridon Country House Hotel is a 20-bedroom luxury hotel in the north west Highlands which has earned AA red stars and two rosettes.  A member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, it uses the internet to deliver faster bookings and to offer potential customers virtual reality inter-active viewing of the hotel.