Aug. 22--The Latin Grammys' pullout sent scores of Miami-Dade hoteliers scrambling Tuesday to fill thousands of rooms they had set aside for the Sept. 11 event. 

Hotels extended discount rates, lifted minimum stay restrictions and called corporate clients by the hundreds in the hope of drawing last-minute business. 

"We're certainly putting our sales team to work," said Brad Packer, publicist for five Island Outpost hotels in Miami Beach, including the Marlin, the Tides and the Cavalier. "We're getting a pretty good response. But to think the city as a whole can recover from this on such short notice is absurd." 

Latin Grammy goers booked 150 of Island Outpost's 189 rooms on South Beach, some 80 percent of its inventory. The five hotels were sold out for the three days of Grammy events, and had been turning prospective guests away for weeks. 

Island Outpost's sales team spent Tuesday contacting corporate clients, and did not plans to alter the hotels' rates, which range from $100 to $395. 

Similar efforts were under way at the Hotel Inter-Continental, where the sales team hopes to stem losses by capturing individual travel sales. 

The Mandarin Oriental responded to the loss by extending its summer discount rate of $159 a night through Sept. 30, after which rates will jump to $319. The promotion was sent to travel agents worldwide via the Global Distribution System, a computer network that details hotel, rental car and airline availability. 

The Mandarin's sales team is also trying to recapture a group that could not be accommodated due to Grammy bookings, which took up 200 of its rooms. 

At the Biscayne Bay Marriott, where 250 of its 599 rooms were to be filled by Grammy goers across three nights, the sales team lowered rate packages with international wholesalers and dropped restrictions on room stays. Guests will still pay $114, but now can book for just one night instead of three. 

"This is not really replaceable because it's a weekday group," said Joe Brown, Miami director of marketing for Marriott Hotels. 

Brown said the Grammys had put local hoteliers in high spirits because September is normally a slow month. 

"In addition to hotels trying to recoup the economic downfall, we're trying to keep people employed," Brown said. "Since it was the event's first time, we didn't put insurance in place. We were just excited to have them here, especially because it was in September." 

Even if the hotel had arranged for back-out penalties, Brown said it was unlikely guests would have been pressed to pay. 

"How could you hold someone's deposit on this event?" he asked. "This is nothing of the customers' doing." 

Not all hotels will be hurt by the Grammys' departure. The 50 rooms booked at the 800-room Loews Miami Beach can easily be filled, its publicist Jeff Abbaticchio said. The Fontainebleau and the Hyatt Regency had previously been booked out by other group events. 

The Grove Isle Resort in Coconut Groves said its loss of 20 booked rooms hurt less than the departure of a $10,000 party for KC Porter, who produces Ricky Martin and Santana. 

"That's our biggest downfall," said Rebecca Colaris, the resort's director of communications. "The list included all the bigwigs." 

William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitor's Bureau, said his office would continue its marketing efforts, but that recouping such a loss in three weeks would prove a formidable challenge. 

"We'll work with them," he said. "But it's very difficult to drive high-end business in the short term. And a lot of this business was high end. That's the tragedy, of course." 

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