Thursday, December 18, 2014

Charlotte is No. 4 on list of 2015 cheap-o travel hot spots


The discount ticket-booker priceline.com announced  on Wednesday its "Top Travel Hot Spots for 2015."

Unlike many of the myriad "top 2015" lists, Priceline's is based on affordability -- specifically, the average per-market, per-day room rate in 2014.

The rankings:

1. Dallas ($86.31; a shot of Dallas is at the top of this post)

2. Salt Lake City ($88.24)
3. Orlando, Fla. (89.57)
4. Charlotte ($92.37)
5. Phoenix ($93.44)
6. Tampa, Fla. ($94.03)
7. Las Vegas ($96.27)
8. Atlanta ($96.99)
9. Louisville, Ky. ($101.69)
10. San Antonio ($102.69)
11. Houston ($103.72)
12. Orange County, Calif.  ($107.91)
13. Minneapolis ($106.69)
14. Denver ($109.20)
15. Portland, Ore. ( $109.30)

These are  major metropolitan areas that are de facto hubs for major conventions or -- like Charlotte, Salt Lake City and Louisville --  aspiring ones; they include Sunbelt and Snowbelt cities where tourism ebbs and flows at various times of the year.

As prices are market-driven, off-season discounts probably reduce the average costs of popular places like Orlando, San Antonio and Orange County -- all warm places stocked with major American theme parks.

Priceline's second "top 2015" list, also released Wednesday, is based on that site's advance hotel reservations at domestic and foreign destinations -- a better indicator of a city or area's tourist pull:

Domestic

1. Orlando
2. Las Vegas
3. New Orleans
4. Miami
5. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
6. New York City
7. Orange County
8. Boston
9. Atlanta
10. Oahu, Hawaii

Non-domestic

1. Puerto Rico
2. Cancun/Cozumel, Mexico
3. London
4. Rome
5. Costa Rica
6. Paris
7. Toronto
8. Los Cabos, Mexico
9. Sydney

10. Barcelona, Spain

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