The Ascend Hotel Collection by Choice Hotels International welcomed the Thousand Hills Golf Resort to its portfolio. Located within the Ozark Mountains in Branson, Mo., Thousand Hills Golf Resort is just blocks from the destination's Country Music Highway 76, which features dozens of live-performance theaters and over 100 restaurants.

Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor reopened its doors after a six-month closure for renovations and refurbishments. 112 of the landmark property's 119 rooms and suites have been fully refurbished. Among the contemporary touches, spotlights have been added to brighten up the rooms, and power ports and USB charging stations have been fitted.

Hyatt Regency Hesperia Madrid opened on one of the city’s most iconic avenues, Paseo de la Castellana. The opening of this 169-room hotel marks the Hyatt Regency brand’s entry into Spain. The hotel’s guest rooms include 33 suites overlooking the Paseo de la Castellana.

The 234-room Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin opened. The property is the first Hyatt branded hotel in Ireland. The hotel is located in The Liberties, one of Dublin’s most historic and vibrant areas which dates back to the 10^th century. Guests will be within 10 minutes of a number of attractions.

With a little bit of this and a little bit of that, Dubuque, IA is the place in the Midwest for great meeting space mixed with trendy locations for entertaining and educating.

Hyatt Place Flint/Grand Blanc opened in Michigan. The new hotel features 106 guest rooms, meeting and event space and 24-hour food offerings.

Sheraton Kaua’i Coconut Beach Resort debuted its property-wide transformation, including 314 redesigned guest rooms, a new arrival experience, oceanfront bar and restaurants, fully reinvented public spaces, a reenergized pool scene and new programming.

MGM Resorts International sells Circus Circus Las Vegas and Bellagio Las Vegas. In the same announcement, made Tuesday, October 16, the company also said there is a deal with Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust to lease back the Bellagio property. Read more.

A massive planned power outage by Pacific Gas & Electric that affected nearly 750,000 Californians starting October 9 didn’t dampen the can-do spirit of the staff and groups at Napa, California’s Carneros Resort and Spa, who banded together to make “light” of a bad situation under the mantra “the show must go on.” Learn more.

Nestled in northeast Pennsylvania, the Pocono Mountains region is an easy escape from the metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. In recent years, the region’s options for meeting groups has expanded with several large casino resorts, as well as retreat-like properties, but the small-town welcome remains strong.