Quore is pleased to announce that it has been named a finalist in the 2019 NEXT Awards program recognizing entrepreneurs, startups and entrepreneurial-minded businesses making a significant impact on the economy in Middle Tennessee. Quore is one of three companies vying for the "Market Mover" honor in the Technology category. The program is being hosted by the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) group founded in 2009 as an initiative of the Nashville business community with a vision to be the front door to entrepreneurship in Nashville. NEXT Award winners will be announced on Wednesday, Nov. 6, at Rocketown in Nashville.

Shiji Group has appointed Sven Maas as the new Regional Head of EMEA. As Senior Vice President-EMEA, Mr. Maas will take the leadership role of the Shiji Hospitality business, responsible for the P&L for all of Shiji Europe, Middle East, and Africa businesses for all product lines.

Angie Hospitality, developer of the industry's first 24-hour interactive guest room assistant purpose-built for the hotel environment, announces the seamless integration of its newly expanded line of Angie devices with hotel IP-PBX systems, eliminating the need for hoteliers to make additional and often costly guest room equipment purchases. Compatible with IP-PBX systems used by many hoteliers today, the Angie device serves as an in-room SIP (Standard Initiation Protocol) device, giving guests the ability to either make offsite calls or connect with hotel personnel in various departments using Angie's built-in voice control or high-resolution touch-screen. This advanced telephone functionality significantly augments Angie's multi-purpose platform, which provides hotel guests with a wide range of conveniences through its award-winning virtual assistant technology platform.

INTELITY®, well known for offering the broadest enterprise guest engagement and staff management platform in hospitality, announced today that it is attending The Lodging Conference, which takes place September 23-26 at The JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix, AZ. CEO Robert Stevenson will participate in a panel on "How Hotels Can Adapt Technology to Wow Guests, Improve Productivity and Deliver ROI."

Beekeeper, creator of the first operational communications platform for non-desk workforces, announced the closing of a $45 million Series B financing. The round was co-led by Thayer Ventures and Swisscanto Invest by Zürcher Kantonalbank, with participation from prior investors including Atomico, Alpana Ventures, Edenred Capital Partners, Fyrfly, Hammer Team, investiere, HighSage Ventures, Keen Venture Partners, Samsung NEXT, Swiss Post, and Swisscom.

Cendyn, the leading innovator in CRM, sales, and revenue strategy for the hospitality industry, announces today a new leadership team to further drive innovation, development, and growth at Cendyn. The newly appointed additions to the team include: John Seaton as Chief Commercial Officer, Michael J. Bennett as Chief Marketing Officer, Olga Peddie as Chief Digital Officer, Steve Stearns as General Manager, APAC and Ron Lugo as General Manager for Rainmaker, a Cendyn company.

The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) has joined a partnership with Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) and The OpenTravel Alliance, to advance distribution technology in the hospitality industry.

Smartbox, N°1 of experience gift category in Europe and D-EDGE, European leader in Distribution technology and marketing for hotels, have joined forces to develop connectivity between their 2 platforms. Thanks to this partnership, hoteliers can now manage their sales on Smartbox as easily as their other channels (OTAs, Site, Wholesalers...) and take full advantage of the growth of this sales platform.

SpaSoft, an industry leading, all-in-one spa management solution is excited to announce their integration with PXP Financial, an omni-channel, international payments provider. The integration allows for payments to be processed directly through PXP Financial's ANYpay POS solution within SpaSoft, and PXP Financial's ANYpay Gateway for SpaSoft's Online Booking Platform, which provides SpaSoft clients with a safe and secure method to process payments.

By now, you've likely heard about the new credit card payment service directive and its potential repercussions in our industry. What you may not know, however, is that PSD2 is nothing new in fact, it was first implemented back in 2015, even though not all its parts were enacted simultaneously. Strong Customer Authentication, particularly, was meant to come into force only on September 14th, 2019, four years after the approval of the directive. So, you'd imagine the industry to be ready, wouldn't you? Well, not quite...