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Last week, the European Union passed new legislation that requires companies — including hotel firms — to ensure supply chains reduce environmental damage and eradicate parts of the supply chain that use forced labor, The Guardian reports. In the vote, 17 of 27 nations agreed to the proposals, with no votes against the motion. The legislation applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and revenue of more than €450 million ($490 million).

Some EU countries have expressed concerns that they would be more affected by the legislation as small and medium-sized enterprises could move out of their countries and not be subject to the law. However, the legislation works in the same way EU-sponsored general data protection regulation works, in that companies created outside of the EU but trading with and in the EU also are subject to the law.

The Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador plan to increase tourism entry fees from $100 to $200. Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism said the new fee will go into effect Aug. 1, according to CNN, to offset concerns that higher visitor numbers are putting more pressure on the islands’ sensitive and fragile ecologies. This is the first increase to the fee since 1998.

Citizens of Argentina, Brazil and Peru will continue to pay a lower tourism fee to enter the Galapagos, which will increase from $50 to $100. Citizens of Ecuador will pay a much smaller amount. The islands have a population of approximately 30,000 but annual visitors of approximately 170,000.

Investment firm Axe Management Partners, which has its main offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong, has acquired three hotels from Singapore-based CapitaLand Ascott Trust for 10.7 billion Japanese yen ($71.7 million). The agreement for the deal was first announced on Dec. 17, 2023, according to business news site The Asset.

The three Osaka hotels, all part of Japanese chain WBF Hotels, are the 182-room WBF Honmachi, 168-room WBF Kitasemba East and 168-room WBF Kitasemba West. Osaka-based WBF filed for bankruptcy during the pandemic, according to stock exchange Nikkei Asia.

Latin America countries are facing high interest rates and persistent inflation, but its hotel industry is seeing opportunities in the luxury segment, Hotel News Now’s Stephanie Ricca reports from the South America Hotel Investment Conference.

The luxury hotel segment “has the smallest existing room count in Latin America but makes up the majority of the hotel development pipeline. Most hotels in development across all segments are branded, and the Mexican Caribbean leads with nearly 4,000 rooms under construction,” Ricca reports.

Reinier Schliesser, principal economist at CAF, the development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, said other challenges have included droughts that restricted shipping activity through the Panama Canal and political instability in many Latin American countries that has in part led to volatility that contributes risk to monetary policy.

According to United Kingdom campaign organization Debt Justice, almost 7 million people in the U.K. — or 13% of the population — have missed three or more credit or bill payments over the last six months. The organization is calling on all the country’s political parties to formulate policies so that “everyone weighed down by unmanageable debt can have a fresh start, that they provide protection from debt collector harassment and guarantee decent incomes for all.”

The hotel industry appears largely unaffected by the overall reduction of dispensable income, despite discretionary income being mentioned as a challenge in many geographies. The Guardian added that more potential guests are feeling financial strain, reporting that the government’s Insolvency Service in its latest figures “showed 10,136 people entered insolvency in February, a rise of 23% on the same month last year.”

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