New Orleans Tops Priceline.com’s Sixth Annual Survey of Independence Day Destinations

New Orleans Tops Priceline.com’s Sixth Annual Survey of Independence Day Destinations
For the first time, 30,000 Priceline.com customers vote New Orleans as the top destination
for July Fourth vacation spots

NEW ORLEANS—June 30, 2009—Priceline.com has announced that New Orleans secured the top spot on its 50 most popular July Fourth tourist destinations survey. This is the first time New Orleans has achieved this accomplishment.

Over 30,000 customers using Priceline.com’s “Name Your Own Price” feature were asked to take the survey. The requests were backed by credit card, implying that this survey is more accurate than a survey based on consumer preference.

Kim Priez, vice president of tourism sales of the New Orleans Convention & Visitor Bureau (CVB) said, “Independence Day weekend is a great time to visit one of America’s most historical and unique cities. We hope visitors will enjoy participating in ESSENCE Music Festival, touring attractions and our museum scene and sampling traditional New Orleans food, music and culture.”

Priceline.com’s in-house Travel Ekspert Brian Ek said, “The big surprise this year is the emergence of New Orleans downtown/convention center area as the number one July Fourth destination. This is the first time New Orleans is in the top spot for the holiday and could signal the completion of the city’s comeback as a tourist mecca following Hurricane Katrina.”

ESSENCE Music Festival celebrates its 15th year July Fourth weekend and is one of several New Orleans festivals visitors can look forward to this summer. Other July, August and September festivals include Tales of the Cocktail, Satchmo SummerFest, Whitney White Linen Night, the New Orleans Seafood Festival, Southern Decadence Festival and Project 30-90.

Priceline.com Incorporated PCLN www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 28 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 hostel 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 22 languages and offers its customers access to over 66,000 participating hotels worldwide.

Consistently recognized as one of the top five convention and visitor bureaus in the United States, The New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau is the driving force behind New Orleans' most important industry, tourism. Today the cultural riches, sensual indulgences and unparalleled service that define the New Orleans experience continue to flourish, as they have for centuries. The most celebrated and historic core of the city— including the French Quarter, Central Business District, Warehouse and Arts District, Magazine Street, the Faubourg Marigny and Garden District—are thriving. In 2008 New Orleans welcomed 7.6 million visitors, an increase over 2007 visitor levels of 7.1 million people. For more information, visit www.neworleanscvb.com.

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