How Big A Bash?

By Deborah Baldwin

Two years ago, the travel industry was about to cash in on a once-in-a-lifetime--make that once-in-a-millennium--event. The most hyped party in world history was fast approaching, and well-heeled globe-trotters were starting to look for special kicks with their New Year's 2000 champagne. As long as computer bugs didn't spoil the picnic, tour operators were bound to make a bundle.

But a funny thing happened: while affluent travelers are plunking down large sums for lavish trips to faraway places, ordinary consumers have begun to balk. The millennium may not be such a travel gold mine after all.

This is not to say that excess is unavailable. Goodwood Travel in Canterbury, England, promises to "rekindle memories of the Imperial days of the Tsars" with a five-day, $5,520 trip from London to St. Petersburg capped by a New Year's Eve Millennium Tsar's Ball (19th century costumes not included) at the gilded Great Hall in the Pushkin Palace.

With Concordes and private jets at the ready, other tour operators are pitching packages so wealthy globe-trotters can watch the New Age dawn against decidedly Old Age backdrops--Yemen, for example. Jump aboard a private jet with R. Crusoe & Son of Chicago for one of its millennium sojourns, and you will also get to see Mali's river-port city of Mopti and the minimalist infrastructure of Timbuktu.

The demand is for the exotic "with the minimum of hassle," in the words of Richard Hefler, senior vice president for sales and marketing at INTRAV, a St. Louis, Mo., travel packager. The company will have a Concorde supersonic jetliner scoop up 96 passengers in New York City and Las Vegas on Dec. 24 for a round-the-world trip. Rather than stuff passengers into a tour bus to take them to the Taj Mahal, INTRAV has chartered a jet that will get them to the palace in the early morning and back to a four-star hotel in Delhi in time for lunch. The 18-day, hassle-free millennium package costs $75,000. Who's buying? "The percentage of travelers who are millionaires is staggering," says David M. Weber, managing director of two-year-old R. Crusoe & Son. His company has sold all 80 places on one millennium junket--around the world in 24 days through developing nations on private jet, at $44,950 (double occupancy)--and started on a second.

Cruise companies were among the first to target the millennium crowd, and some trips have been booked for two years, reports Ian Buckeridge, editor of a magazine published by the British tour operator Cruise Line. Prices are 15% to 20% above last year's. His company touts the Silver Seas line, which has two millennium excursions around Tahiti in the $25,000 price range. Thanks to the international date line, the South Seas will be awash in ships. "Because," says Buckeridge, "in theory you can get in three different New Years." Date-line dodging presumably offers insurance against a disappointing first bash.

What insurance exists to cover Y2K computer problems, which should kick in at the stroke of midnight if they are to happen at all, is a grayer area. Despite great effort to iron out the bug, a number of travel professionals privately confess that at midnight Dec. 31 they hope to be in the safety of their own homes. "A lot of my clients have canceled travel," says one Y2K debugging consultant. It's not because they think airplanes will drop out of the sky. "They worry that alarm systems won't be integrated," he says, "and hotel doors with those high-tech cards will fail, releasing the locks." (That's another way of suggesting burglars could be celebrating this New Year with gusto.) To avoid blackouts and the like, some hotels are bringing in generators. Travel packagers like Carlson Wagonlit are demanding statements from providers that basically guarantee clients will have plenty of hot water and electricity come midnight.

Computer professionals and other debugging managers will be on the job--and on the road--during the millennial holiday season. And therein, says Hugh Taylor of Jarvis Hotels, a British chain, lies an unexpected millennium opportunity. "There will be an entire community around the world in charge of handling the bug," Taylor says. "We're putting packages together for them."