MILKING THE MILLENNIUM.

Airlines, cruise lines, hotels--just about all industries--are raising rates through the roof for the party of a lifetime, Will anybody go?

CARYN MATHES AND HER ATTORNEY HUSBAND HIT THE Internet months ago in search of a hot spot for welcoming the millennium. The general manager of Detroit's public radio station found a flight, room, and rate for Venezuela's Margarita Island online, but fortunately she doubled-checked the fare with a travel agent before buying. Total savings: US$3,400.

Affordable transport and lodging are always difficult to find during the holiday season. And this year, with all the hullabaloo about the year 2000, prices started to rise hard, fast and early for what promised to be a once-in-a-lifetime bash. However, travel operators who expected Latin America to pop the millennium cork with a bigger-than-normal bang say the fizz has gone out of their bubbly.

As they do each year end, expedition cruise vessels will ply the Galapagos; New Age travelers will scramble around Machu Picchu; Cancun will host an onslaught of revelers; and Rio de Janeiro will burst with merrymakers simultaneously celebrating New Year's and the festival of Lemanja, goddess of the sea. But the region won't cash in big-time from millennium fever.

"This millennium was a big, big hype," says Joel Marchal, owner of Global Connections, a Canadian travel agency specializing in Latin America. "It was blown out of proportion."

Marchal and travel operators in the region say airlines and hotels that hiked prices almost tenfold in some cases early in the year are starting to offer discounts in an 11th-hour bid to profit from 2000 fever. But travelers just aren't biting.

Hot spots. "There isn't one spot in the region that stands out as a millennium destination like Paris, New York, Las Vegas or Australia," explains Maria Teresa Torruella, international public relations manager at Marriott International, as she recites the laundry list of "hot" Dec. 31 destinations. "Individually, our hotels are putting together New Year's Eve activities, but this is a time of year when the properties normally sell out anyway."

Torruella predicts Marriott's two dozen hotels in Latin America and the Caribbean will teem with expatriates returning home for the holidays, North Americans and Europeans seeking warm weather and local residents bound for hotel parties. But she describes that as year-end "business as usual." Marchal says hotels in Buenos Aires and Santiago have done little millennium marketing.

At the San Juan Marriott Resort and Stellaris Casino in Puerto Rico, General Manager Horst E. Sicher is gearing up for as many as 2,000 party lovers at a gala featuring six bands and fireworks over the hotel's beach. While nearly double last year's attendance, Horst says the popularity of the $250-per-person bash is more thanks to the success of the prior year's party than on millennium fever.

"I think there's going to be a lot of hoopla and people are probably going to spend a little more this year, but the crowd will be big simply because in Puerto Rico the people like to go out," he adds.

Latin Americans appear no more likely to embark on millennium trips than their stateside counterparts, who are opting by a wide margin to stick close to home. A U.S. survey conducted for Travel Weekly, a trade magazine, found more than 80% of those polled definitely would not travel to mark the new millennium. Travel Weekly Editor-in-Chief Nadine Godwin says the July telephone survey involved 405 people whose average family income was $79,000 a year, making them more-likely candidates for travel than the population at large.

"My unscientific sense is that this is not wildly different from any other New Year," says Godwin. "Only 8% of those surveyed had firm plans. Another 9% are exploring the possibility. The rest simply aren't going anywhere."

Year-end gouging. Mathes initially balked at a Margarita Island trip when she discovered the Detroit-Caracas airfare alone would exceed $1,000. A travel agent eventually found the Michigan couple a week-long, hotel-air package for $1,700 per person, less than half the original price. But Venezuela is earning a reputation for stratospheric prices at year's end.

Canadian travel agency owner Marchal says Canaima Camp at Venezuela's Angel Falls is guilty of "gouging" with its year-end rates. "When I usually arrange the three-day, two-night package with airfare from Caracas, it's about $400," Marchal says. "When we asked for the New Year's price, it was $5,000 per person."

A whopping $14,265 per-couple millennium hotel package in Caracas had no takers by late September. The four-night presidential suite deal at the Gran Melia Caracas Hotel Suites and Conference Center promises intensive pampering, including Dom Perignon champagne, an open bar and wine cellar, gourmet dinners, chauffeurs, massages and facials at a spa, a national park tour and an invitation to a New Year's Eve gala featuring musicians from Cuba.

"Some people in this country and other Latin American countries are concerned about the Y2K problem and don't want their executives to go abroad," says Simone Lara, director of sales and marketing at the Gran Melia Caracas. "There may be some heads of state or presidents of companies who might be interested in a really good millennium celebration like this."

The Gran Melia Caracas' 10 Royal Suites, offering a more economical array of extras than the presidential suite deal plus a ticket to the hotel's $250-per-person New Year's party, by early September had lured only four couples willing to shell out $4,400 for the four-night package. The 432-room hotel was only 50% booked three months before Christmas.

A spokeswoman at Lima Tours in Peru says hotel rates in that country are running about a third higher for Dec. 23 to Jan. 5. When the American Society of Travel Agents, an international organization that includes Latin American travel agents, queried its members, most reported end-of-year package and tour prices up an average 30%.

"We've found that the airlines were asking for too much deposit--$250 a seat, non-refundable, Normally they ask between $40 and $100 and it's refundable until 60 days before travel," says Sarah Erskine, manager of MILA Tours, a suburban-Chicago-based operator specializing in Latin American destinations for nearly two decades. "The hotels didn't necessarily hike prices, but they wanted prepayment three months in advance. Normally, they require about 30 days."

Panicky price slashing. Most tour operators complain that airlines--especially U.S. carriers--dramatically inflated fares, claiming the most economical seats were not available. Because of the volatility of pricing, some travel agents are encouraging their clients to skip New Year's and plan Year 2000 trips weeks or months later. Others predict panicky price slashing will surface in the weeks before Christmas.

Latin America may take a back seat to the South Pacific, where revelers at the International Dateline will be the first to hail the new millennium, but the region will still see a good party. Although tour operators say Costa Rica and Belize have sold out for the year-end bash, in part because they have restricted numbers of hotel rooms, Brazil is emerging as party central.

Cariocas will flood Copacabana Beach to make candlelight offerings to sea goddess Lemanja as New Year's fireworks explode over the bay. The party is expected to lure three million merrymakers, including many who have shelled out $460 a piece to samba at the Hotel Inter-Continental Rio fete atop Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf Mountain).

In the Galapagos, meanwhile, New Year's cruise packages were snatched up as soon as they were announced earlier this year. "They sold out quickly," explains David Moore, director of sales at Dallas-based Adventure Associates, the North American office for Ecuador's Metropolitan Touring. Metropolitan's 90-passenger MV Santa Cruz and 40-passenger yacht Isabela II will interrupt their normal expedition itinerary to anchor at Latitude 0 and pop open the champagne as the calendar flips to 2000.

Luxury cruises are emerging as one of the most popular ways to celebrate the millennium, despite prices running two to four times higher than usual, but Latin American itineraries are not figuring prominently. The only Princess Cruises' millennium ship with berths still available was the one slated to ply the coast of South America. The Royal Princess, sailing from Buenos Aires Dec. 19, offers a New Year's party at sea during its 16-day cruise to Santiago. Santiago, meanwhile, is the departure point for Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Crown, which plans a 14-day millennium sailing through the Chilean fjords and onto Buenos Aires. Passengers aboard Crystal Cruises' Crystal Harmony, en route from Buenos Aires to Barbados, will dock Dec. 31 in Rio to watch the fireworks.

Crush at Cuzco. In Peru, Cuzco and Machu Picchu are hoisting the party banner. Revelers are expected to flood the ruins at Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuaman, which will be illuminated New Year's Eve. Operators reported Cuzco hotels booked to capacity--despite price hikes.

At Lima Tours in the Peruvian capital, Luli Gamarra de Noriega says limited lodging and transportation to the former center of the Inca empire will hold down some of the crush at Cuzco. She notes that the highland city and Machu Picchu hold most appeal for people who believe in mysticism--and who are willing to pay for it.

"It's going to cost more," says Gamarra de Noriega, image and communications chief at Lima Tours. Maupintour, a Kansas-based travel operator with a strong presence in Latin America, is charging $4,845 per person for a nine-day Miami-Machu Picchu package.

In Mexico, officials say there will be festivities in Mexico City and at Mayan and Aztec ruins, although the tourist board has no coordinated millennium promotions as yet. Beach destinations, including Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco, are expected to burst with parties. U.S. travel operators say their clients are shelling out hundreds of dollars more than normal for air fare and hotel rooms to join the celebrations.

Some Latin American hoteliers say low-level concern over the Y2K bug may be keeping some folks from planning elaborate trips in the region. "When I tell people we're going to Margarita, they gasp and say 'What about the millennium computer crash?" Mathes notes. "But I figure, if the computers go down and we're stranded, what better place to be than on a beach in Venezuela?."

WISH YOU WERE WHERE?!

We asked our far-flung correspondents to chime in on Latin America's best places to spend the passing of the millennium. From the battle zone of Chiapas to one of the region's many New Age attractions, here are LATIN TRADE'S top picks for the big night.

Havana

Partake of forbidden fruit and celebrate New Year's Eve with Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and the entire crew of the hot-selling Buena Vista Social Club in Havana. It's rundown, illegal for U.S. citizens and undoubtedly going to be one hell of a party.

Deborah Rivera

La Fortuna

Enough talk of Aztec ruins and Inca trails! I for one am not going to join the Mayan peace calendar parade. New Year's Eve is a time to indulge one's hedonistic side, and what better place to do so than at Costa Rica's luscious Tabacon Resort, just outside the northern city of La Fortuna.

As I sit in one of the many thermal pools, making resolutions I'll later break between occasional trips to the swim-up bar, my eye will be on the flery Arenal volcano. If the lava flows at midnight and the end of the world begins, I'll have no regrets.

Julie Dulude

Vacation land of the Incas

Like Atahualpa on the day he was ambushed by the Spanish, head to lovely Cajamarca to take the waters. Between trips to the Banos del Inca, frequent the plaza--the city's pulsing center--with its San Francisco church and spooky catacombs. See the Cuarto del Rescate, where tons of gold were taken in a bid to save Atahualpa, and explore the Complejo Belen, a former monastery and the city's architectural jewel. Not only are Cajamarquinos famed for their hospitality, handicrafts and savory food, but they're also masters of common sense. One example? When Belen still housed a hospital, the sickest patients were bedded beside the door to the cemetery.

Mary Dempsey

Patagonia

Tour Patagonia by boat starting from the Chilean island of Chiloe. The attraction is obvious: icebergs, whales and what anyone who has seen it swears is the clearest night sky anywhere in the world.

Eric Lyman

Dona Barbara

There's nowhere better to be than sipping Champagne in a hammock under the stars at Venezuela's Hato Dona Barbara. This sprawling cattle ranch is immortalized in the famous novel Dona Barbara, based on a 19th-century plainswoman. Today, the family-owned hato doubles as a nature preserve bursting with hundreds of exotic species. Howler monkeys croak in the spreading saman trees, anteaters trot through the brush and caiman snap from their watery lairs. Guests saddle up for horseback treks and fish for piranha. When cowboy Francisco Estrada sticks his arm into a mud hole and yanks out a 20-foot anaconda, things really get exciting.

Anne Kalosh

Pulitzer Parati

Between Rio de Janeiro and Santos, the beach stretches for 400 miles. The small island off Parati is a true paradise on earth, with friendly people and lots of axe music, everything from Timbalada to Carlinhos Brown. And journalists take note: If the Y2K bug causes an apocalypse, the nearby Angra dos Beis nuclear power plant should provide front-page news, and who knows, maybe even a Pulitzer Prize.

Thierry Ogier

Pisco Elqui

In the narrow, green little valley of Pisco Elqui in northern Chile, hippies camp under copper pyramid structures that supposedly connect to "The Other Side." The town of Elqui has just one inn, a church and a local incense supply depot called the AlmaZen, The final sunset of the century is guaranteed to be a stunning wild orange cap of light disappearing over the dark valley walls. The silence at night will be so complete as to become a sound unto itself.

Greg Brown

Alto Paraiso

Alto Paraiso, a town of 4,000 residents, sits atop an immense layer of quartz crystal in the high, rolling Brazilian cerrado (high savanna), 120 miles north of Brasilia. The crystal's cosmic powers have attracted 40 sects--from those that get calls from other planets to more apocalyptic and messianic sorts. The seekers have turned this place into a 1990s Age of Aquarius, good vibrations kind of place, complete with mud therapy, chakra massages and mantras. For those not into Ohming, there are cloudless blue turquoise skies, some of Brazil's highest peaks and the most spectacular waterfalls and lunar-like landscapes at the nearby Chapada dos Veadeiros national park.

Michael Kepp

Teotihuacan

What do the pyramids at Teotihuacan have to do with the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ? Well, nothing. But celebrating at Mexico's premier pre-Columbian archeological site will unite both sides of the country's indigenous and Christian heritage. And what is Mexico--and mach of Latin America--really about, if not mestizaje?

The Revolution Begins Now

Brendan Case

Join Subcommander Marcos and the Zapatistas as they take control of another village in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The first postmodern guerrilla group promises a rambunctious night and opportunities to take photographs with the subcommander. Bring your own weapon (real or made of wood), uniform and black face mask.

Roberto Moran