New Orleans' French Quarter Back Onto the Top 50 Labor Day 2006 Destinations After a One-year Absence; New York City's Upper Midtown Neighborhood the #1 Most-Requested / August 2006

Hotel Online Special Report

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New Orleans' French Quarter Back Onto the Top 50 Labor Day 2006 Destinations
After a One-year Absence; New York City's Upper Midtown
Neighborhood the #1 Most-Requested
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NORWALK, Conn. - Aug. 28, 2006 -- One year later, New Orleans is showing more signs of rebounding from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. In its annual survey of destinations receiving the most hotel room reservation requests for the upcoming Labor Day long weekend (September 2-4), priceline.com(R) (Nasdaq: PCLN) found that New Orleans' French Quarter made its way back onto the list after a one-year absence.

To compile its list of the Top 50 Labor Day travel destinations, priceline.com looked at a sampling of more than 30,000 hotel room booking requests made by priceline.com customers for the September 2-4, 2006 period. Since the priceline.com study is based on actual booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, priceline.com believes the study is one of the more accurate predictors of future travel trends.

New Orleans' return to the list of most popular destinations was a full year in the making. Priceline.com conducts periodic destination surveys for major holiday periods and the French Quarter was a perennial favorite among its customers. In addition to consistently ranking in the Top 50, New Orleans was the 18th most-popular destination for Labor Day 2004. After Hurricane Katrina hit the city on August 29, 2005, New Orleans disappeared from subsequent priceline.com Top 50 lists, only to re-appear today in the #40 spot.

In other list results of note, New York City's Upper Midtown neighborhood became the #1 most-requested destination for Labor Day 2006, replacing the Las Vegas Strip vicinity, which had occupied the top spot for each of the past two years.

Destinations recording the biggest gains in popularity year over year include Boston's Copley area (+21 spots), Maui's Wailea/Makena (+20 spots), Chicago's O'Hare area (+20 spots), New York's Midtown East (+17 spots), Downtown St. Louis (+16 spots), Downtown Seattle (+14 spots) and the San Antonio Riverwalk area (+14 spots).

Neighborhoods cracking the Labor Day Top 50 list for the first time include San Juan (20), Jackson Hole (45), Oahu's Diamond Head (48) and Portland (41). Travelers also seemed to shake off recent terrorism-related news, choosing London's Bloomsbury-Marble Arch neighborhood as their 25th most requested Labor Day destination.
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Rank 2006	Neighborhood	Rank 2005	Yr/Yr Change
1	New York, Upper Midtown	4	+3
2	Chicago, Millennium Park	14	+12
3	Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity	1	-2
4	Chicago, North Michigan Avenue	2	-2
5	New York, Soho/Financial District	NA	NA
6	New York, Midtown West	5	-1
7	New York, Midtown East	24	+17
8	San Diego, Coastal	7	-1
9	Seattle, Downtown	23	+14
10	Waikiki, South	6	-4
11	San Francisco, Union Square East	9	-2
12	San Francisco, Union Square West	8	-4
13	San Diego, Downtown/Harbor Island	18	+5
14	Vancouver	16	+2
15	Boston, Copley	36	+21
16	Boston, Downtown/Charlestown	13	-3
17	San Antonio, Downtown/Riverwalk	31	+14
18	Las Vegas, Convention Center/UNLV	NA	NA
19	St. Catharines, Niagara Falls	22	+3
20	Puerto Rico, San Juan	NA	NA
21	San Diego, Point Loma/Shelter Island	NA	NA
22	Montreal	12	-10
23	Chicago, O'Hare Area	43	+20
24	Toronto, Downtown	25	+1
25	London, Bloomsbury/Marble Arch	NA	NA
26	Orange County, Disneyland Area	27	+1
27	Austin, Downtown	17	-10
28	San Antonio, Medical Center Area	NA	NA
29	Maui, Wailea/Makena	49	+20
30	Virginia Beach	26	-4
31	St. Louis, Downtown	47	+16
32	San Diego, East County	NA	NA
33	Washington, White House/Downtown	21	-12
34	Philadelphia, Downtown	NA	NA
35	Boston, Brighton/Brookline	NA	NA
36	Monterey	15	-21
37	Toronto, Markham	19	-18
38	Orlando, Universal Studios/Sea World	40	+2
39	Miami, South Beach	45	+6
40	New Orleans, French Quarter	NA	NA
41	Portland, Downtown	NA	NA
42	Orlando, Disney World Area	39	-3
43	Jersey City	37	-6
44	Buffalo, Niagara Falls	11	-33
45	Jackson Hole	NA	NA
46	Atlanta, Midtown	NA	NA
47	Hilton Head	NA	NA
48	Oahu, Diamond Head Area	NA	NA
49	New York, Midtown South	28	-21
50	Seattle, Renton/Kent	NA	NA

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About Priceline.com
Priceline.com is the leading travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers. No other travel service gives customers more ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting all the best published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using priceline.com's TripFilter(TM) advanced search technology, create packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price(R) service, which delivers the lowest prices available.
Priceline.com operates one of Europe's fastest growing hotel reservation services through Activehotels.com, Activereservations.com, Bookings.net and priceline.co.uk. The company also operates the following travel web sites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com also has a personal finance service that offers home mortgages, refinancing and home equity loans through an independent licensee. Priceline.com licenses its business model to independent licensees, including priceline mortgage and certain international licensees.

Contact:

Brian Ek
203-299-8167
[email protected]
www.priceline.com

Also See:	Top 50 Destinations for Memorial Day 2006 / May 2006
	The 50 Most Requested Destinations for the Labor Day Weekend; Priceline.com Survey / Aug 2003

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