Best Western International announces the certification of the cloud hotel management system protel Air, developed by Germany-based protel hotelsoftware. protel is now one of only a few hotel software providers offering a cloud solution that complies with the Best Western specification, and can be used by their hotels around the world.

As the hospitality industry continues to migrate its mission-critical technologies above property, RMS Hospitality Solutions is encouraging owners and operators in the hotel, apartment, vacation rental, campground and RV resort markets to experience "The Hospitality Cloud" -- a suite of a la carte technology solutions designed specifically to streamline and simplify operations. On The Hospitality Cloud, lodging operators can run their property management, point of sale, channel management, guest marketing, business intelligence, tour desk and other systems without any reliance on hardware or IT infrastructure. More than 4,000 properties in 25 countries currently rely on RMS for their property solutions, of which 60 percent are now fully operating via The Hospitality Cloud.

"We recently took over a portfolio of 11 hotels where everything was done by hand. Accounting, budgets everything was in Excel spreadsheets. Our team knew immediately that we needed uniform accounting and an easier budget process across the properties," said Darren Phillips, CHA, principal of Magnolia Hotel Group. Columbus, GA-based Magnolia Hotel Group (MHG) owns and operates Marriott, Hilton, IHG and Wyndham properties in the Southern US. "Today we have everything online and our GMs don't need an accounting background to create and update their budgets." Manually maintaining accurate daily financial processes and continuously updating budgets can be a demanding process for any hotel company. "We upgraded to systems and processes that simplified our operation and gave us accurate, continuous up-to-date financials and budgets. We implemented the Targetvue Budget and Planning and Profitvue Enterprise Accounting systems from Aptech Computer Systems to make this happen," Phillips said. Aptech is the leading provider of hospitality software for business intelligence, budgeting, and enterprise financial accounting. Click here for more on Aptech's products and services. The Targetvue budgeting and planning system simplifies enterprise-wide planning, consolidation, and reporting by eliminating the need for companies to rely on management or manipulation of multiple spreadsheets. It gathers information and provides managers with the performance data they need to take proactive measures to increase profitability. The system combines daily data updates with historic trends to forecast future performance. Profitvue is a widely used thin-client, Internet-enabled enterprise back office solution that easily handles single, multi-property and multi-company accounting, and incorporates accounts payable, general ledger, statistics, and financials. "MHG operates several flags and they all have different market segment designations and levels of detail on their P&Ls," said Phillips. "The Profitvue accounting system is self-explanatory for all our property types. It is interfaced to our property management systems, and linked to our Targetvue budgeting system to eliminate data entry errors. Targetvue takes general ledger and payroll code data from Profitvue to streamline our processes. It cuts our budget time down significantly and I can easily review our numbers centrally from an ownership perspective." As MHG's revenue and expenses go up or down daily, Targetvue's forecast for each hotel is automatically updated to reveal factors behind the change. The system automates, in one day, the process that used to be a complicated five-day chore of calculating a new forecast to monitor trends. The result is better expense management based on actionable data that reduces risk. "Targetvue easily provides forecasts based on all the factors that impact property profitability, such as labor, utilities and equipment," Phillips said. "It is very well suited to hospitality operations. We can have as much detail on the P&L as we want. Once the revenue has been input, we apply industry standards for cost per room and other metrics to create budgets. We use Hilton market segments for our Doubletree, and with Targetvue it is very simple to set up unique line items, like Starbucks." Magnolia Hotel Group plans to expand its Targetvue rollout in the future. "The combination of Targetvue and Profitvue simplified our operation on many levels. We will continue to roll it out to all of our hotels and new properties in the future." About Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the only provider of a fully integrated enterprise accounting, business intelligence and planning ecosystem to the hospitality industry. All of its clients are companies like yours, which own or manage hotels. Its solutions help customers at both the corporate and property levels understand their financial and operational data for faster goal achievement. The company is renowned for introducing business intelligence into the hotel industry, and offers a solid resource of hospitality professionals. Aptech is an IBM Software Value Plus partner and Premier Solution Provider. Incorporated in 1970, Aptech's state-of-the-art back office, true business intelligence and enterprise planning solutions are 100% hotel specific. Solutions include Profitvue®, Execuvue®, Webvue® and Targetvue. Clients comprise over 3,200 properties - including large chains, multiple-property management companies and single-site hotels. Execuvue and Profitvue are registered to Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective holders. For more information please visit www.aptech-inc.com.

Building on its new approach of delivering industry leading technology solutions to its franchisees through the use of third party strategic partners, Wyndham Hotel Group-the world's largest hotel company and one of three hospitality business units of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: WYN)-today announced plans to deploy a new, automated, Software-as-a-Service, revenue management system from Infor across more than 4,500 of its franchised hotels within the U.S. and Canada.

At its Global Conference in Las Vegas today, Wyndham Hotel Group announced to thousands of franchisees that the company has entered into a global CRS services agreement to migrate its central reservations systems to Sabre Corporation's industry-leading SynXis Central Reservations solution.

According to Gartner, the customer relationship management (CRM) market is projected to increase to $36.5 billion by 2017. Businesses across all industries are looking to improve customer interactions through technology, but this is particularly critical for hoteliers who are losing ownership of customer relationships to online travel agencies (OTAs) that are outspending them on CRM technology and marketing. CRM applications have the ability to enable real-time connections between hospitality companies and their customers, and benefits are only compounded when solutions are integrated with advanced platforms for revenue management, mobility and business intelligence.

"Limited Edition" usually implies something extraordinary and rare which offers something better, more exclusive and more desirable... well, that's exactly what Virgin Limited Edition does! Virgin Limited Edition is Sir Richard Branson's collection of stunning retreats. It includes a private island, mountain retreat, game reserve, catamaran, lodge, tented camp, vineyard, restaurant, and a private members club. Eclectic, yes, but all are unique and operate with the sole aim of creating amazing experiences.

PAR Springer-Miller Systems, Inc. (PSMS) — a wholly owned subsidiary of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) and the leading provider of guest-centric hospitality management systems — congratulates its clients named to the 2015 Forbes Travel Guide's listing of Five Star Spas and Hotels.

As hotels and restaurants employ mobile, social, and informational tools to connect with guests, they require a new type of "engagement" device at the point of service (POS). To meet this need, Oracle today introduced Oracle's MICROS Workstation 6 with a fresh, modern design that provides hospitality and select retail venues with a next-generation POS terminal that works in concert with mobile, cloud, and social media to deliver consistent, integrated content across multiple sources.

FCS Computer Systems (FCS), a leading comprehensive hospitality solutions and services provider, announces the signing of a Business Partnership (BP) agreement with Netvision, a regional specialist for Croatia in the telecommunications, multimedia networking and IT security and management fields. The new partnership comes as a result of Netvision's mission to be consistently recognized as the prime source for sophisticated, state-of-the-art hospitality solutions throughout the Adriatic region. As a BP, Netvision will have the ability to distribute the comprehensive suite of FCS hospitality technology products, providing its clients in Croatia with hospitality's most advanced operational and guest satisfaction enhancing platforms.