Those who typically go away for Christmas and New Year's are still going away. While tens of thousands are expected to welcome in the new century in New York's Times Square, most New Yorkers will be celebrating in front of their televisions, according to former New York Mayor Edward Koch. A lot of hotel rooms are being booked, but they're being booked by companies. Both the Hotel Monaco and the new Burnham Hotel, which opened for business on Friday, are heavily booked by corporations, according to Carrie Reznicek, director of sales and marketing for the two Kimpton Hotels-owned properties. But virtually all of that business is from corporations, says Reznicek, noting the hotel is demanding full advance payment for the rooms.
Most reservations are for three or four days before New Year's Day and two or three days after.
She expects more bookings soon. Companies aren't ordering the highly lucrative catering and bar setups that normally fill cash registers on New Year's Eve, however. Almost throughout the developed world, the Y2K rollover is being treated as a national emergency. Governments are establishing crisis centers to handle virtually any disaster. Unicom Corp. Edison employees will be camped out at a command center in Joliet where they have booked 20 rooms at the Hampton Inn for computer specialists who will be on-call around the clock as one year ends and another begins.