A Gulf Coast holiday

Anecdotal evidence from hoteliers in the Fort Myers and Tampa areas suggests rooms will be full this holiday season.

But here's some hard evidence from Orbitz, the online travel site. It analyzed its flight and hotel bookings and found that the Fort Myers and Tampa areas ranked among the top 10 most popular destinations for Christmas.

Orbitz ranked Tampa as the sixth most popular destination for Christmas and Fort Myers as seventh. That's despite the fact that year-over-year airfare prices rose 2% in both cities.