Raffles International Ltd. signed an agreement with Beijing Hotel, a hotel under the Beijing Tourism Group, to rebrand and manage the property under Raffles International´s luxury Raffles brand. Plans call for relaunching the hotel 2006 as the Raffles Beijing. Raffles International said the contract marks the first entry of the luxury Raffles brand into China.

British hotel chain Hilton is planning to add three more properties in a trio or Argentine cities other than Buenos Aires, where the company landed five years ago. Hilton Hotels has just signed an agreement to build a new resort in Ushuaia, Argentina´s southernmost city, at an initial price tag of $13 million. This facility will be ready to go in 2007. The other two establishments will be located in Puerto Iguazu and Mendoza.

Spanish chain Fuerte Hotels is getting its big break in the Mexican travel market with the grand opening of a resort near Cancun –the Sunscape Puerto Aventuras. The lodging facility underwent an all-out refurbishment and remodeling process in an effort to draw foreign tourists in. The 305-room Sunscape Puerto Aventuras –the Andalusia-based company´s seventh resort- is perched on a private beach strip in the heart of Puerto Aventuras at an 75-minute drive from the Cancun Airport. Its primary target will be American citizens.

Holiday Inn Express, the U.S. megabuck hotel chain, will ante up $10 million to build a new lodging facility and a shopping mall along Costa Rica´s North Pacific Coast, Joaquin Gamboa, of Fe y Esperanza Co., announced today. The 120-room Del Llano Hotel will cover a total surface of 52,000 square meters and will feature a conference hall seating up to 600 people. The shopping mall, for its part, will total 4,320 square meters for 37 stores and a parking lot for 240 vehicles. The two additions will generate some 400 full-time jobs.

Spanish chain NH Hotels will open a new lodging in Mexico´s Queretaro in the second half of 2006 at an estimated price tag of 6.6 million euros granted by local investors and developers, the company informed this week. The hotel -designed to target business travelers- will have 140 rooms and 300 square meters of meeting halls, plus restaurants, bars, cafeterias and facilities for handicapped guests. All accommodations will be equipped with pay-TV and Internet hookup.

From an investment of US$1.2 billion, Baha Mar Development Co. Ltd. will build a 2,700-room resort project in Nassau´s Cable Beach area, covering 500 beachfront acres. Three existing hotels -- the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino, the Nassau Beach Hotel and the Radisson Cable Beach Resort -- will be razed in two years to make room for a casino hotel, a convention hotel, an 18-hole golf course and a retail village by early 2009.