Hotels, airlines, shops are trying to lure you

LOOKING for a travel bargain? The following are some recent developments that might reduce the cost or improve the value of your next trip:

* Among the costliest of all Caribbean locations is the elegant British island of Barbados. But thanks to a subsidy of the resort industry by the Barbados government, that island is currently offering vacation bargains. From Los Angeles, it will cost $599 for round-trip airfare and seven nights at a pleasant hotel near the beach. Call Atlas Vacations at (800) 634-1057, www.atlasvacations.net.

* The so-called Chinatown shuttles -- low-cost, family-owned buses that connect the Chinatown in one U.S. city with a similar community in another city -- continue to increase. Several years ago, the first of these services, charging as little as $10 each way, began operating from New York’s Chinatown to Boston’s Chinatown. Since then, other bus services have started up between New York and Philadelphia, New York and Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and so on, attracting many non-Chinese riders. You buy your tickets, usually, at Chinese bakeries in the departure city, but now there’s a Web site for that purpose: www.ivymedia.com.

* When it comes to all-inclusive beach vacations -- the stays that include airfare, three meals daily, unlimited drinks, sports and entertainment -- it’s hard to beat the Dominican Republic in price. Liberty Travel, (877) 999-3913, www.libertytravel.com, has a September/October special for $899 from Los Angeles for five nights at the Sun Village Beach Hotel in Puerto Plata.

* Several weeks ago the World Health Organization removed Hong Kong from its list of locations where SARS still poses a danger, and tour companies all over the country rushed to restart the flow of tourism there by offering unusual Hong Kong bargains. One of these, from www.virginvacations.com, will fly you there on United Airlines from Los Angeles, San Francisco or Seattle (or from Newark, N.J.) for a uniform $599, including five nights at a Hong Kong hotel.

* Because many Americans are shunning international travel this summer in favor of travel within the United States, most U.S. motel chains are scrambling to create special incentives. Among the largest of the promotions is that of Cendant Hotels, which operates 12% of all the hotel rooms in America under its Travelodge, Super 8, Howard Johnson, Ramada, Knights Inn, AmeriHost Inn, Days Inn and Villager brands. This summer, if you make your reservations for any of those chains over the Internet, you’ll receive reductions of up to 35%.

* The amount of shopping you can do overseas without incurring U.S. duties upon returning home has recently been raised to $800 per person ($600 from the Caribbean). But you can avoid even those increased limits by mailing items worth up to $100 to your family or friends and marking the purchases “unsolicited gifts.” Moreover, you can also mail items of $100 and less to yourself marked “for personal use” and thereby avoid paying duty on them. Just be sure that the savings you enjoy are greater than the postage you will need to pay for mailing these items from a foreign location.