Redirecting via meta refresh

As I am linking to a site outside my domain I would like to be able to keep track of how many of my visitors go there.(it is a site where they can book online)
My solution is to link to a page on my own site that has a refresh tag of zero and a redirect to the aforementioned site.

I am wondering if this will cause conternation in the Google search engine's calculations and set back my listings or even worse.

It seems unlikely to me but I would like to be sure as I don't want to be punished in any way or relegated to any sandpits

Using Meta Refresh for redirects is not advisable. I have used it myself a while ago with something like 5 second refresh and that hasn't caused issues, but setting the refresh time at 1 or less may cause serious problems as Google will think you're setting up a doorway page.

Why not install Google Analytics on your site and include the page where you're redirecting to as you'd then be able to track traffic to the page under "content" --> "page URL" of the destination page. Couldn't you then 301 the old page to the new one? 301 is the Google approved method of redirection and works very well. We use it every day...

thanks
I thought I was being overcautious but I have now removed that redirect.
I will look into the Google Analytics or maybe I could rely on visitors to click through themselves as that is all there would be on the page and if they are serious about booking then they would make that little effort.(once I get an idea of the traffic I would probably remove the intervening page)

Actually you can do this without causing any problems.

I have plenty of sites that use a meta-refresh on a page that bounces people out to affiliate sites (so that I can track the click in a database) with no problems whatsoever.

I have my "clickout" page which you pass a parameter for the destination url, and I nofollow the link to the "clickout" page

It is not a problem as you don't want the clickout page ranking anyway and it's an exit point on the site.