Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns the Venetian and Palazzo resort casinos in Las Vegas, and resorts in Macao and Singapore, has selected Madrid, Spain, as its preferred location to build an integrated resort development for the European market.

For the first time in five years, travellers paid more on average for their hotel rooms during the first six months of 2012 in all parts of the world, according to the latest Hotels.com Hotel Price Index.

The newest luxury resort development poised to take advantage of the burgeoning Brazilian tourism market is Ámanoca, a 5-star villa and hotel development south of Rio de Janeiro in the Costa Verde region.