The French hotel chain Accor, which has properties in several Caribbean destinations, is bringing its four-star Novotel brand back to Singapore with the rebranding of the Hotel New Otani as the Novotel Clarke Quay Singapore. The rebranding is effective immediately and will be followed by a multimillion-dollar refurbishment and upgrading program due for completion by the end of September.

Dominican President Leonel Fernandez has just ordered the creation of a healthcare institution for foreign tourists in response to recent infection outbreaks that have hit dozens of travelers in hotels in the eastern and northern regions of the country. The National Commission on Health and Tourism (CONSATUR is the Spanish acronym) will be made up of several official bodies headed by the Ministry of Health and with help from the Pan American Health Organization.

President Bush has asked Congress to increase the fees that airline passengers have to pay to pay for some of the hike in spending on his homeland security, one of the few agencies that would be spared an overall spending cut in 2006. A tax on travelers is a tax on airlines, complained James C. May, president and chief executive officer of the Air Transport Association. Travelers will feel the burden as any new tax or fee raises ticket prices and the cost of airlines doing business, he denounced.

Pope John Paul II has just appointed Italian Monsignor Giovanni Franceso Brugnaro as the Holy See Permanent Observer to the World Tourism Organization, Vatican sources informed this week. Monsignor Brugnaro, 62, is replacing Prelate Piero Monni who presented his resignation to the Holy Father in recent days.

Following a decade of hardworking efforts and successes, the Meliá Cohiba Hotel, one of the most outstanding lodgings of the Cuban capital, is prepping up to celebrate its tenth anniversary on February 24. The celebratory program includes numerous activities to highlight VIP guests, honor founding employees, stage special concerts at the in-house Havana Café, mount exhibits of works of art and launch a big bash full of surprises on February 24.

Ritz-Carlton Hotels will enter the Turks and Caicos luxury market with a 125-suite boutique property on the uninhabited island of West Caicos, a 20-minute boat ride from the island of Providenciales, where the international flights arrive. The property, set to open in 2007, will be called Molasses Reef, a Ritz-Carlton Resort, and also will feature 60 Ritz-Carlton-branded residential villas.