Editor's Note: Some linked articles may be behind subscription paywalls.

Canada's government has announced dates for the opening of its borders, noting it is “a risk-based and measured approach.” On Aug. 9, Canada will begin allowing entry to American citizens and permanent residents, who are currently residing in the United States, and who have been fully vaccinated at least 14 days prior to entering Canada for non-essential travel.

The Canadian government added this is the first step, and on Sept. 7, any fully vaccinated traveler will be allowed entry into the country.

Europe is the only world region in which the hotel industry has recorded a year-over-year increase in hotel rooms in construction. The number of rooms in the final planning stage at the end of the second quarter of 2021 was 177,165 — an increase of 13% from the same period in 2020, according to June pipeline data from CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm STR.

Europe also showed a 7.9% increase in rooms in construction, with Germany (49,027 rooms) and the United Kingdom (36,444) leading for the quarter.

Boutique hotels, which often are independent hotels, should use their unique stories to set themselves apart in markets crowded with branded assets, according to Hotel News Now’s Danielle Hess, reporting from the “Staying Independent in a Very Corporate World” panel at the online 2021 Women in Travel & Hospitality Conference by TIEWN.

Moniqua Lane, owner of The Downtown Clifton hotel and forthcoming Citizen Hotel — both located in Tucson, Arizona — said stories, as well as a good location, gave her properties a competitive edge, despite challenges.

“We went through 15 different lenders before I found one. And even that was based on the strength of my contractor’s decision, my architect’s decision, consultants I was working with," she said. "It was incredibly hard to finance an independent hotel. … Financing for the second hotel was easier because [I] had a good track record as an independent owner.”

According to a July 19 news release from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession that came with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic ended in April 2020. Having lasted only two months, it was the “shortest contraction on record," the New York Times reports.

The newspaper added that even if it was short, the recession was very severe, with 22 million U.S. jobs eliminated in March and April and unemployment reaching 14.8% — the worst level since the Great Depression.

The United Kingdom announced it is planning to toughen laws on online ratings and reviews, many of which it said are fake, to introduce tougher financial penalties and easier ways of bringing action, according to a news release from Kwasi Kwarteng, the government’s secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy.

The new law will make it “automatically illegal to pay someone to write, or host, a fake review,” the government stated, adding it will help regulators “stamp out other dodgy tactics used to dupe online shoppers, [so-called] ‘dark patterns’ that manipulate consumers into spending more than they wanted to and ‘sludges,’ negative nudges such as when businesses pay to have their product feature highly on a trader’s website while hiding the fact they paid for it.”