Battered, not broken, and willing to bargain

IF you’re a travel contrarian and you take risks by vacationing in places other people avoid, you will rush to Florida and the Caribbean in the remaining weeks of the hurricane season, which lasts until the end of November.

Many autumn travelers to these areas have been so frightened by Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne that occupancies are sharply down and discounts are spectacular. Nearly every Florida and Caribbean hotel has vacancies, and many will bargain.

Tourism will continue to be slow in the regions next year. I predict that memories of the current difficult season will depress travel to the tropics for at least the autumns of 2005 and 2006. And thus contrarians will pick up extraordinary bargains.

But what about the forthcoming winter, starting mid-December, when hurricanes tend to disappear? The hardest hit of the popular tourist islands -- Grenada and the Caymans -- have suffered so much damage that there are doubts about their ability to receive the usual number of tourists this winter.

Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, though also hard hit, should be able to restore their tourist infrastructure within three months and accommodate a normal tourist flow.

Florida, except for its Panhandle, the Atlantic Coast north of Palm Beach and parts of the state’s southwest, is in better condition. Phone anyone in Miami or Fort Lauderdale and he or she will confirm that the region doesn’t have the kind of damage, for the most part, that would impede a vacation. Orlando’s theme parks and the resort hotels that funnel guests to them are generally going strong.

“Quite honestly,” said Danielle Courtenay of the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau, “if you were a visitor coming in from the airport and did not know about the storms, you would have no reason to believe anything special had happened.”

Other officials acknowledge that residential areas and private homes in Orlando have suffered damage.

The Panhandle is a different matter, and crews continue to clear demolished hotels and food shacks, creating a gap-toothed picture of properties along the beach. In recent years, expensive high-rise hotels and condominiums have begun sprouting along this coastline, next door to smaller, one-story mom-and-pop motels; many of the latter have now been swept away, while the high-rises remain unscathed.

Florida depends so heavily on sales taxes paid by tourists that quick efforts will be made to hide or remove the extensive damage that might dissuade visitors from spending their dollars in the state.