Chicago's Millennium Park Is #1 on Priceline List of Top Destinations for July 4th, 2010

NORWALK, Conn., June 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) today released its annual survey of the 50 most-popular destinations for the upcoming Independence Day weekend.  This year, Chicago's Millennium Park replaces last year's winner, New Orleans, as the most popular July 4th destination among Priceline customers.  

The survey is based on more than 30,000 hotel room booking requests made by customers using priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® hotel reservation service.  Because the survey is based on credit card-backed booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, priceline.com believes the annual survey is one of the more accurate predictors of July 4th travel trends.    

Commenting on the survey, priceline.com's in-house "Travel Ekspert" Brian Ek said, "This year's list may be showing the effects of the BP oil spill.  New Orleans dropped 25 places on the list, from #1 last year to #26 this year.  Another favorite Gulf destination, Destin, FL, dropped off this year's list entirely.  Beach destinations this year were concentrated on the East and West coastlines."

Looking at the rest of the list, Ek commented, "With the economy forcing many smaller towns to cut back or eliminate their fireworks displays, the beneficiaries are the big cities, like Chicago, Boston, New York City and Washington, DC, that traditionally put on elaborate July 4th events."

In New York City, July 4th visitors can look forward to Macy's famous fireworks display.  Chicago is hosting its Taste of Chicago festival, along with three fireworks displays on the North Side, South Side and at Navy Pier.  Boston has the 6-day long Harborfest celebration with fireworks, the Boston Pops and Toby Keith.  And Washington, DC, will have the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, a concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol with Reba McEntire and David Archuleta, an Independence Day parade and fireworks on the National Mall.

Ek added that there were two surprises on the list that could portend a healthy summer tourism season ahead for those regions.  "The Niagara Falls vicinity made the list four times this year, which is unusual," Ek said.  "And there was a particularly strong showing for cities in the Northwest, including Seattle, Anchorage, Victoria and Vancouver."

Priceline www.priceline.com said it still has reservations available for hotel rooms, airline tickets, vacation packages and rental cars for the long weekend, often at significant discounts over other online travel reservation services.  To see the special July 4th deals, visit http://travela.priceline.com/promo/deals/july4th/deals.html and, for last-minute deals,  www.priceline.com/pricebreakers/.

The Priceline Top 50 Destinations List for July 4th 2010

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 34 languages in over 94 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, Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service and TravelJigsaw, a multi-national car hire 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 81 countries in 31 languages and offers its customers access to approximately 86,000 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 operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com also licenses its business model to independent licensees.

SOURCE Priceline.com