VingCard Elsafe, the global leader in electronic locking, security and energy management solutions for the hospitality industry, today announced the appointment of Robert M. (Bob) Aquilino as President, Americas. In his new role, Aquilino will be responsible for leading all VingCard Elsafe activities in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. In collaboration with the executive management team, he will provide strategic leadership to accelerate the company's growth in these key markets. Part of the ASSA ABLOY Group, the company's brands include VingCard, Elsafe and Orion by VingCard Elsafe.

Germany-based protel hotelsoftware presented the world's first property management system for iPad at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), a leading event for the travel and tourism sector in Dubai. Setting the focus on mobile solutions for the hospitality industry, protel this year showed hotel apps for hotel managers, teams and guests and introduced the new "full-service" SaaS solution, protel Air.

YouTube generation expects more"Some things never change. People still buy from whom they like, and being able to develop your relationship with a customer faster over the miles will make a greater impact on your conversions," said Robin Deyo, executive vice president of Cendyn. "eFaceTime videos let enthusiastic hotel salespeople personalize a proposal as soon as they finish their first call with a group prospect."

Management at Vermont's historic Basin Harbor Club hotel had a sense that Libra OnDemand was more than just another customer relationship management technology, but they could not have predicted that just six months after implementation the system would be playing a central role in keeping the property running smoothly.

The MICROS Payment Gateway is a payment gateway solution designed to specifically facilitate integrated payment support for the MICROS suite of enterprise hospitality products, including OPERA, MICROS 3700, MICROS 9700 and Simphony. As part of the agreement announced today, the MICROS Payment Gateway will integrate within Planet Payment's data center and processing platform, with MICROS providing merchants with direct customer service and support. As a result of this arrangement, any acquirer or processing customer utilizing Planet Payment's global platform now has access to the integrated MICROS solution.

"Guests value the Southwestern flavor of our independent properties because each has its own style that reflects the cultural history of its location," said Felene Koen, corporate controller for Heritage Hotels & Resorts. "We are careful about the hotels we acquire so we can offer a rich experience that gives guests a way to connect in a meaningful way to our part of the US. Because our properties are in separate areas, we link them to our corporate office with the Profitvue cloud-based central hotel management accounting system from Aptech Computer Systems. Profitvue enables us to see daily revenue and expense performance for each hotel." Click here to learn more about Aptech's products and services.

Historic Hotels of America® is pleased to announce a new website that seamlessly integrates history and heritage travel with technology enabling guests to discover, explore, and celebrate great moments and people as they journey through American history. Launched this week and developed in partnership with Sabre Hospitality Solutions, www.historichotels.org makes researching, planning, and booking cultural travel accommodations easy, engaging, and educational. By connecting Historic Hotels of America's unique collection of more than 235 historic hotels with the locations, events, and places in history, the new website provides an unforgettable experience for guests seeking rich cultural and historic travel. With an enhanced search criteria console, a dynamic map-based hotel finder, and an interactive timeline that mixes historic events, famous people, inventions, and economic milestones with member hotel openings, www.historichotels.org proves to be as much of an interactive history guide as it is a hotel booking site.

Libra OnDemand, a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider of hospitality solutions natively built using Cloud technologies, is in the midst of major expansion into a pair of important new market segments-the gaming industry and the Middle East region. The innovative technology company is demonstrating its award-winning web-based application suite at key events this week in Catoosa, Oklahoma, and Dubai, UAE.

Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku, a chic business hotel in the busy Shinjuku district of Tokyo, leveraged the dynamic marketing tools offered by Sabre Hospitality Solutions to help increase bookings from the hotel's website by 166 percent over the past year.

MICROS Systems, Inc. and its subsidiary MICROS-Fidelio International, a leading provider of information technology solutions for the hospitality and retail industries and Platinum member of the Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), is pleased to announce that it has demonstrated expertise and quality in delivering its applications to the global hotel, restaurant and retail markets on the Oracle technology stack and has achieved OPN specialized status.