How to setup default form values in cakephp

If you want to configure some default values for the form you can use the model's create function this way:

//in you booking model
function create($data) {
 if (empty($data['Booking']['country_id'])) {
  $data['Booking']['country_id'] = 225;
 }

 parent::create($data);
}

this would preconfigure country_id value to 255

Update:
In order to have these data available in your view you must setup $this->data variable in your controller:

$this->data = $this->Booking->create();

you can also setup $this->data variable directly in your controller:

$this->data['Booking']['country_id'];

* if you are testing it with firefox be aware that the browser doesn't refresh your form data values until you press ctrl+f5