travel agents.

At least one company has forked out about $10,000 to host some clients on a World Cup week, which included tickets to the games in the United States.

And travel agents have reported that more than 1,000 residents are headed for the US for the tournament, having paid high prices for tickets to the games.

Colonial Insurance Company Ltd. general manager for property and casualty, Mr.

William Madeiros is leading 15 clients along with Colonial staff to Boston for the first week of the tournament.

Managing director of Colonial, Mr. Alan Peacock, said he saw it as a cost of doing business. But he admitted that while he was jetting out himself to attend tonight's Italy-Norway match in New Jersey: "I'll be paying my own way.'' The week-long trip that is being overseen by his staff included tickets to Tuesday's Argentina-Greece match, today's South Korea-Bolivia game and Saturday's key Argentina-Nigeria contest.

Even with the number of empty stands that at early games, scalpers, even here in Bermuda, are getting substantial mark-ups. One resident due to leave the Island with $45 tickets (Mexico v Ireland) for which he paid $200 and other tickets that had cost $130 (Belgium v Holland) hoped to recoup his money, having obtained less costly tickets since.

Travel agents have also found a market here with one suggesting that as many as 1,000 Bermuda residents could be attending the games.

That estimate came from Mrs. Pam Maybury of Meyer Travel, the company that advertised opportunities to buy air seats and game tickets. Hundreds took advantage of the opportunity.

Mrs. Maybury said: "Bermudians have obtained tickets from a number of sources. We bought ours from tour operators.'' Mrs. Maybury said tickets have been ranging from $40 to $300 because of the middle man.

"We've sold quite a few,'' she said.

Mrs. Vicki King of Darrell Travel said her company had sold about thirty airline tickets to World Cup Travellers. She said more people had shown an interest, because it is the World Cup.

She said: "It has been especially New York and Boston, the destinations, because they were the closest. The airline tickets were purchased some time ago, in early May I think, when there was a great seat sale by airlines.

Mr. Gary Kent Smith, managing director of Donald Smith Travel Agency said: "The drawback to the games' location is that some are across the US mainland, but we have had a couple of dozen people that bought air tickets to Orlando and some that went to New York.

"We had more trouble getting rooms in hotels, because a lot of these bookings were done months ago. The hotel managers, especially in Orlando, must have been expecting a boom of people, so costs did not include things like golf and breakfast.

"They must have been surprised by the lack of numbers of people going to Orlando, so they had to re-think, and are now offering golf and breakfast with the room.'' Sporting goods stores also reported a steady stream of football enthusiasts seeking clothing such as T-shirts and hats.

Companies that anticipated this demand included Sports R Us, Champion Sports, The Pro Shop, Sports Source and The Sportsman's Shop. They all reported a brisk trade, especially with items that carried the colours and the name of specific World Cup teams.

Demand was highest for Brazil, Cameroon and Ireland items.