A year ago, no international cities, save for a handful in Canada,
appeared on priceline.com’s (Nasdaq: PCLN) annual list of the 50 most
popular destinations for the Labor Day holiday. What a difference a year
makes. In 2009, no fewer than 11 international destinations, including
London, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona and Paris, made priceline.com’s 7th
annual Labor Day list.
The list is based on more than 30,000 hotel room booking requests made
on priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price® hotel service for the holiday.
Because the survey is based on actual booking requests, and not on
consumer preference polls or votes, priceline.com believes its annual
survey is one of the more accurate predictors of Labor Day travel trends.
Priceline.com also said it still has plenty of last-minute airline
tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages, tours and
attractions, and cruises available for Labor Day getaways. A sampling of
deals is included below. All quoted deals were being offered today on
priceline.com’s PriceBreakers last-minute deals service. Hotel-only
deals are offered on a Name Your Own Price® basis. Availability is
subject to change at any time.
Visit www.priceline.com/pricebreakers
for a full list of Labor Day specials.
"International destinations are quite appealing this year,” said
priceline.com’s in-house travel expert and blogger Brian Ek. "Airfares
are very reasonable and the Dollar vs. euro exchange rate, which was as
high as $1.60 last summer, is now down to a more manageable $1.43. In
the U.S., major cities that may have lost convention and business
travelers are offering spectacular hotel deals to lure leisure travelers
for the fall.”
For the second year in a row, New York City’s Times Square/Theater
District and Chelsea Area took the top two spots on the list. However,
the Big Apple’s Labor Day popularity appears to have slipped a bit.
After taking 11 spots last year, New York City area neighborhoods were
selected eight times in 2009.
Big cities and their downtown areas, brimming with restaurants, theaters
and back-to-school bargains, are popular destinations for this Labor
Day. Beach attendance, which was lighter than normal last year due to
late summer storms, was up again this year, led by Hawaii, San Diego,
Key West, Virginia Beach and Atlantic City/Cape May.
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Priceline’s Top 50 Destinations for Labor Day 2009
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Rank
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Neighborhood
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#1
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New York City, Times Square/Theater District
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#2
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New York City, Chelsea Area
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#3
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Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity South
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#4
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Seattle, Downtown/Pike Place
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#5
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New York City, Empire State Building Area
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#6
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San Francisco, Union Square West/Nob Hill
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#7
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New York City, Midtown East
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#8
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Chicago, Millennium Park/Loop/Grant Park Area
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#9
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Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity North
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#10
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Boston, Copley Square/Theater District
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#11
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Vancouver, Downtown
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#12
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Chicago, North Michigan Ave./River North Area
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#13
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New York City, Madison Square Garden/Convention Area
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#14
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Oahu, Waikiki Beach Area
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#15
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New York City, Central Park South
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#16
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Montreal
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#17
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Paris, Eiffel Tower/Port De Versailles/Montparnasse
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#18
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St. Catharines, Niagara Falls
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#19
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Toronto, Downtown
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#20
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Memphis, Downtown
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#21
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San Diego, Downtown & Harbor Island
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#22
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Boston, Harbor Front/Aquarium
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#23
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New York City, Midtown West
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#24
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Austin, Downtown
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#25
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Buffalo, Niagara Falls
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#26
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London, Mayfair/Soho
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#27
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Rome, Central Area
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#28
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San Francisco, Union Square East
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#29
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Washington, DC, White House/Downtown
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#30
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San Diego, Coastal Area
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#31
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Orange County, Disneyland Area
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#32
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Key West
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#33
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St. Louis, Downtown
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#34
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Savannah, Historic District
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#35
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Virginia Beach
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#36
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London, Bloomsbury, Marble Arch
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#37
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Atlantic City/Cape May
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#38
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Monterey, Monterey/Pacific Grove
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#39
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Toronto, Markham
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#40
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Newark/Meadowlands/Jersey City
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#41
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San Diego, Point Loma/Shelter Island/Old Town
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#42
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New Orleans, French Quarter
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#43
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Barcelona, La Rambla/La Barceloneta
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#44
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Maui, Wailea/Makena
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#45
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Napa/Sonoma
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#46
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Berlin, East District
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#47
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Oahu, Waikiki Marina Area
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#48
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Los Angeles, Beverly Hills/West Hollywood
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#49
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San Antonio, Downtown/Riverwalk
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#50
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Atlanta, Midtown Area
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About Priceline.com® Incorporated
Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com
provides online travel services in 29 languages in over 78 countries in
Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Included in the
priceline.com family of companies is Booking.com, a leading
international online hotel reservation service, priceline.com, a leading
U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers, and
Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service. Priceline.com
believes that Booking.com is Europe’s largest and fastest growing hotel
reservation service, with a network of affiliated Web sites. Booking.com
operates in over 70 countries in 24 languages and offers its customers
access to over 71,000 participating hotels worldwide.
In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their
airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises
than any other Internet travel service. In addition to getting great
published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using
priceline.com’s TripFilter advanced search technology, customize their
search activity through priceline.com’s Inside Track features, create
packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com’s
famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices
available.
Priceline.com also operates the following travel websites:
Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com.
Priceline.com also licenses its business model to certain independent
and international licensees.