According to Chris Erskine, reporting for the Los Angeles Times:

“Hotwire.com says Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and Rome are seeing the their lowest hotel prices on the site in over five years, while airfare in cities like Berlin, Dublin, Helsinki and Valencia has dropped as much as 13%.

Hotwire President Clem Bason sees the drops as a combination of three factors: a hotel room glut after the Summer Games, the weakening euro and struggling European economy, and the usual autumn slowdown, when the travel industry typically drops prices anyway.”

In order to snag the best deals, Bason recommends cities that may be secondary on travelers’ minds but are “still wonderful”. He recommends travelers consider Berlin, Budapest, Geneva and Prague.

Other European destinations to consider are Athens, Seville, Rome, Porto, Valencia and Venice. Nightly hotel rates in these cities have dropped from 10 to 20 percent. Another trip to consider should be a European cruise. According to Bason, cruises are the “single best value in European travel right now.”

Here are two additional tips to keep your travel costs down:

Booking Hotel Stays. Make sure to take the time to research hotels and bed and breakfast prices online before booking your room including these web sites:

• Budgetplaces.com
• Hotwire.com
• Hotels.com
• Priceline.com
• Travelocity.com
• LuxuryLink.com

Landing Cheap Airfare. Here are some tactics to use to land the best cheap airfare deal:

• Book travel on Tuesday afternoons three months out if possible
• Use Bing Travel and Airfarewatchdog to set fare alerts
• Use airfare comparison sites like Kayak and FareCompare.com
• Be flexible on traveling dates –Tuesdays, Wednesday and Saturdays are generally the cheapest
• Compare fees charged on checked bags and seat selection

What tips do you have for getting the best deal on traveling to Europe?

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