Travel bargains seen in Vegas, Mexico, London

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cash-strapped travelers should be able to find bargains at destinations that normally cater to business travelers and by taking advantage of foreign exchange rates, online travel agents advise.

Their top tips for U.S. travelers are Las Vegas, Mexico and London.

The chief executives of the three publicly traded U.S. online travel agencies -- Priceline.com (PCLN.O), Expedia Inc (EXPE.O) and Orbitz Worldwide Inc (OWW.N) -- see sharp drop in business travel due to the recession, freeing up hotel rooms in places like Las Vegas that depend on conferences.

"There are some great deals out there and you don't have to spend as much as you did last year," Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in New York on Tuesday.

He said hotels that rely on business travel were aggressively targeting the leisure travel segment to fill the gap. "That's a real silver lining for the consumer. The cost of travel has gone down pretty significantly year-on-year."

Priceline CEO Jeffery Boyd said customers were finding they could get more for their money than ever before -- for example a three- or four-star hotel might now be in the same price range as a two-star hotel previously had been.

"In some of the destinations that typically have a lot of business travelers, and in some of the hotels that have a very high reliance on conferences and shows and business travelers, Priceline has received some very, very good deals," he said.

Las Vegas has been the hardest hit by the collapse in group bookings, but other business destinations such as New York are also becoming more affordable.