Oct. 20--Club Med, the resort company known for its exotic vacation locales, said it will temporarily close 15 resorts as a result of lost business following the Sept. 11 attacks. 

The French company, Europe's largest resort operator, said yesterday it suffered up to $27 million in losses in the last couple of months due to fallen travel demand. 

With tourists suddenly skittish about flying and foreign travel, bookings dropped as much as 50 percent in the three weeks following the attacks, the company said. 

Club Med will close resorts in the Bahamas, the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, Greece, Africa, Malaysia, Israel, Egypt and Mexico, among others. It will have 105 resorts in operation. Instead, it will focus on winter ski resorts. 

The company's problems didn't begin on Sept. 11, analysts said, but the threat of continued terrorism has made matters worse. The travel industry was already facing a downturn due to the weakening economy. 

"People may feel more concerned about trying to reach those places," said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Forrester Research. "They may have security concerns, or they may feel that it might be hard to get back home if something happened." 

Many of Club Med's patrons are North Americans. 

The company is also undertaking other general cost-cutting measures, it said. 

Club Med told analysts it was now negotiating flight prices on a weekly basis for the coming season. Before Sept. 11, prices were often set for an entire season. 

Separately, fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks forced riverboat operator American Classic Voyages to file for bankruptcy and cancel most of its trips. 

American Classic, the second cruise company to file for Chapter 11 protection since the air attacks, said its ships operating in Hawaii, the MS Patriot and the SS Independence, will stop sailing on Saturday at the end of current cruises. 

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