New Survey among travel services finds Europeans&Americans returning to big-crowd party hot-spots for new year`s eve

Three major hotel reservation networks – priceline.com®, Travelweb LLC and Active Hotels – are reporting that big cities are back in vogue for Europeans and Americans planning to celebrate New Year`s Eve 2004.

In total, the three reservation services, which are all owned by priceline.com, work with over 20,000 hotel properties around the globe.

Recently, the services independently surveyed thousands of actual hotel reservation requests or bookings made by their customers for the night of December 31, 2004, to see where Europeans and Americans preferred to spend the holiday – and how those preferences might compare to past years.

Europeans` New Year`s Eve preferences were measured by Active Hotels, one of the leading hotel reservation services for the UK and continental Europe. Active Hotels found that London was the top destination for December 31st, followed in order of preference by Paris, Barcelona and Madrid. Average bookings for New Year`s Eve were up approximately 100% compared to a year ago.

Within the UK, Active Hotels found that the top six New Year`s Eve destinations this year are, in order, London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow and York. For the first time since Active Hotels started to compile this list in 2002, Manchester has knocked Edinburgh`s famous Hogmanay celebrations into third place.

Priceline.com found that the number-one destination for Americans on New Year`s Eve is none other than New York City`s midtown west neighborhood, home to Times Square.

In fact, New York City neighbourhoods made up 60% of the top 10 destinations selected by priceline.com customers. Other popular destinations included Las Vegas, New Orleans, Chicago and Orlando. (Full list appears at end of release). When priceline.com compiled its top destinations list for New Year`s Eve 2001, right after 9/11, the most popular destination for those who did mark New Year`s Eve was the southern Nevada desert town of Las Vegas, whose various neighbourhoods made up 50% of that year`s top 10 list. New York City neighbourhoods held just two spots in the 2001 top 10, with Times Square coming in a distant 3rd to Las Vegas` south and north Strip areas.

A New Year`s Eve booking survey conducted by Internet hotel reservation service Travelweb LLC largely mirrored priceline.com`s findings. New York was the number-one spot this year, with Las Vegas, Chicago and Orlando also ranking in the top 10. Unlike priceline.com, Travelweb hotel customers also put Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Montreal in their top 10.

Priceline.com`s Top Destinations For New Year`s Eve 2004

(Destinations are ranked in descending order of popularity among American customers based on actual hotel booking requests made on the priceline.com Web site between January 1 and December 7, 2004 for occupancy on the night of December 31, 2004).

1. New York, midtown west
2. Las Vegas Strip vicinity
3. New York, midtown east
4. New York, midtown south
5. New York, upper midtown/Central Park south
6. New Orleans, French Quarter
7. New York, upper east side
8. Chicago, North Michigan Avenue
9. New York, downtown/Soho
10. Orlando, Disney World vicinity
11. New York, upper west side
12. Miami, South Beach
13. Las Vegas, Convention Center area
14. Orlando, Universal Studios/Sea World area
15. Las Vegas, west of Strip area
16. Las Vegas, UNLV area
17. New Orleans, central business district
18. Las Vegas, airport area
19. Las Vegas, Fremont St. area
20. Chicago, The Loop/Grant Park