Atlanta Real Estate | What to do When the Market is Flat

Georgia is known for its peaches. And in its capital city, there are dozens of places named for the fuzzy fruit Ñ from businesses to streets like Peachtree Plaza, Peachtree Way and Peachtree Park Drive, to name a few. But it's the original Peachtree Street that is the spine of the city.

Running north and south from the heart of downtown Atlanta to suburban Buckhead and beyond, you could actually use the route as a key to the city. To be sure, not all of Atlanta's biggest attractions are on Peachtree Ñ you won't find the Georgia Aquarium here, or the New World of Coca-Cola. But you will find plenty of hotels, some interesting landmarks, shopping and other places to visit.

Hoping the prospect of savings will woo cash-strapped travelers, the nation's tourist destinations are taking a page from the retail playbook, offering tourists a variety of discounts and freezing gate prices.

Free night stays at Walt Disney World in Florida. Coupons worth $15 off at Pennsylvania's Hersheypark. Admission to the Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest fish tank, at last year's prices.

The markdowns are enough to make even the most frugal traveler think twice about staying home.

"Given so many people have lost their jobs and aren't getting raises and aren't getting bonuses, it did not seem appropriate to do a price increase this year," said Dave Santucci, spokesman for the aquarium in downtown Atlanta.

A ticket at the aquarium will cost the same this year as it did last Ñ $27 for adults. Visit once, and you get a "bounce pass" to return any time that year for $15. And the aquarium is brokering deals with surrounding attractions like the World of Coca-Cola to offer combination tickets at discount prices.

And it couldn't come at a better time.

The nation's tourism industry hasn't seen a year this bad since just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when hotel occupancy dropped 16 percent over the prior year, said Jan Freitag, vice president of Smith Travel Research, which follows the hotel industry. Hotel occupancy dropped 10 percent from November 2007 to the same month in 2008, he said.

"It's not pretty right now, from the hotel perspective," he said. "Some analysts out there think it's going to get much worse."

So there you have it; Atlanta is a buyer's market. And it provides a high quality of living, with plenty of culture, history and modern real estate.