comScore, Inc., released a study on the growth of the online travel market in Brazil from its comScore Media Metrix service. The report found that 16.5 million Brazilians visited Travel sites in July 2012, gaining 18 percent in the past year as a record number of Brazilians turned to the web to plan and book travel.

Regent Hotels & Resorts has introduced brand-wide complimentary internet access across all five of its managed hotels in Beijing, Taipei, Berlin, Zagreb and Turks & Caicos. Complimentary internet will now be the standard in each of these luxury hotels, and will also be available in Regent’s upcoming openings.

Hotels are putting social media on hold as a marketing and selling mechanism, while they focus on driving direct bookings in response to their continuous struggle for better margins with the Online Travel Agents (OTAs), says research by Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (Switzerland) and RateTiger.