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A new set of standards is coming up for credit card transactions. EMV or Europay, Mastercard, Visa, standards include a chip-and-pin device on the card that requires the card to be inserted into the card processing terminal. While this does not prevent all fraud, it's important that this standard is mandatory by 2015 and business operators should be preparing for changes.

China's Eastern Airlines & Sabre, a Global Distribution System, just signed an agreement allowing Sabre to use the airlines inventory and airfares to market to the travel agencies associated with Sabra.  This will help increase their North American expansion.  Sabre's technology and resources will help enhance the expansion for for China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines.  Marketing intelligence from Sabre has helped the airlines cater to the flight schedules and operations for their customers.  Sabre's network reaches more than 300 million people! 

Consumers are spending more time engaged digitally, especially smart phones. So retailers are applying the mobile devices for POS retail expansion. The processing speed and its mobility made mobile POS more helpful, productive and competitive. It offers a powerful computing platform that combines the attractive form factor with ease-of-use; it also save the tablets cost and offer retailers a vital tool to improve productivity and decision making from the back office to the point of order entry on the retail floor.

According to this article, e-commerce such as online activities has been changing how retailers develop their global expansion strategies. As e-commerce is growing so fast, online booking, online shopping and online reservation are more popular than old days. Being a retailer, he has to be adapt to this new e-commerce trend and start to build an  online presence in order to maximize potential advantages from e-commerce. This article also showed top 10 countries in the 2012 E-Commerce index in which China is decided being the leader of the pack. China has 513 million internet users and 164 million online shoppers, which means that China's potential online retail market is expected to develop faster and faster. What's more, there are three main reasons that people in China like shopping online. The first is that there are greater products selections comparing with shopping in some malls. The second reason is that online shopping make customers be able to compare the prices by vendors. The last reason is also the simplest because online shopping make daily life more convenient than before.

This article show cases Subway Digital's recent acquisition of a 20-person team from Avanti Commerce. This team's main focus will be the expansion and customization of an innovative e-commerce and onmi-channel platforms. Apart from that, the team is also developing a new program for in-restaurant kiosks.

Amazon web Services or AWS is a cloud based platform created to help the hospitality, restaurant and travel industry. This platform enables companies to save money, increase global expansion, enhance user experiences thereby enhancing customer loyalty.

New York Fiesah is an online marketplace that connect NYC event planners and all kinds of vendors in a much easier manner. The event planner signs into Fiestah"s dashboard, they input the items they need and then vendors place bids to fill in those needs. Fiestah generates revenue by taking a 10 percent cut of each transaction. Another thing Fiestah provides for both parties is that the payment is held in escrow until the vendor completesits task, meaning both sides need to get what they want first. This will make sure both parties can get what they want. Testah team has been hard at work building out the marketplace, introducing themselves to lots of NYC business, and trying to get traction. The next thins on the company's long to -do list is to create full merchant profiles with the ability to rate vendors some time in the next few months. Also Fiestah plans to bring its market place to a next city - San Francisco.

The article talks about an online company in New York that was designed by Nurul Yahya called Feistah. It's an online event planning that allow all kind of vendors in a much easier manner then what's described above. The event planner simply signs into Feistah dash board input what "item" they need for event and then vendors place bids to fill in those needs. The company generates revenue by 10 percent cut of each transaction. In the next thing on the company's long to-do list is to create full merchant profiles with the ability to rate vendors sometime in the next few months. Fiesta next expansion is to startup in San Francisco.

This article talks about a successful online training program belongs to STARWOOD HOTELS&RESORTS which is called ProLearing module. This specific online training program is quite beneficial to travel professionals to have a full version of starwood's brands and get familiar with the room rates for agents. Online training systems are commonly used by most internal employees but fewer for externals in hospitality industry. Most of the hotels have their own online training systems for employees to familiar with company concepts, hotel operations, service manuals and even a sales system like StarHot. As a part of training program for externals, ProLearing module does a good job for its company band expansion for agents and finds new market segments which is not just includes regular guests and potential employees. I believe that more and more travel professionals will join this program and make it to succeed.

Industry events have been emphasizing the importance of conducting advanced training programs to produce qualified personnel and provide unique services that meet the requirements of travelers and tourists. Greater focus is recommended towards promoting creativity and innovation across the travel and tourism market which is in need of 'travel consultants' rather than just 'ticket clerks,' for example. IT development is playing a vital role across the industry as an effective means to obtain services in a quicker, easier and more reliable manner. Online booking, for one, has received highly positive response from customers and has driven tourism companies and travel agencies to invest in the latest systems and talents to achieve greater customer satisfaction. Bin Mahfouz added that it is vital to adopt advanced IT systems that can support effective and convenient online services. Such systems, he said, promote competitiveness and help meet and exceed customer expectations."Rapid changes and fast-paced digital developments have influenced the Elaf Group of Companies to undertake major investments across the Saudi travel, tourism and hospitality sectors and beyond to keep pace with international developments and resolve competitiveness-driven challenges to reach a wider segment of customers. Some of the areas we are focusing on are the installation of better IT systems, the expansion of our hotel portfolio, and advanced training to enable our personnel to meet the many needs of our customers," said Bin Mahfouz. 

"Hong Kong's International Airport is seeing a total investment to improve facilities and provide better services for growing numbers of air passengers. The airport served a record 53 million passengers in 2012. Investments include the development of the Midfield and West Apron, and a new cargo terminal, which will start operations in 2013. In 2012, plans for a third runway were approved. The expansion will take about 11 years before the three-runway system can be commissioned in 2023.

There is an information technology revolution that changed not only the economies of countries but also companies of all sizes everywhere. The development of information technology has become a very important component for the competitiveness of companies. The IT revolution has a big impact on the tourism industry and its management. Services are bought before time of their use and away from the place of consumption. Easy access to information and marketing are keys to the success of companies in the tourism industry. Computerized networks and electronic distributions have caused structural changes in the tourism industry. Computer Reservation System (CRS) is a data base program that helps tourism organizations to manage their inventory and make it accessible to their distribution channels partners. Airlines, hotels chains and tour operators are examples of users of the Centralize Reserve System. The growth of tourism demand has only been possible with the use of powerful CRSs. It has helped with: * Easy access for consumers * Transparency of information * Easy to compare information and choices * Greater degree of flexibility * Travelers can book reservations at the last time The growth of tourism supply has also benefited from Computer Reservation System: * CRS is used to manage inventory * Expansion of tourism enterprises globally * Sell products globally * Flexibility in prices * Improve competitive advantage Internet has increased the interactivity between consumers and suppliers. It enables businesses to custom make and facilitates services. The World Wide Web helps distribution of multimedia information. Tourism enterprises will be able to communicate directly to their consumers and custom made the product according to their needs.

Benchmark Hospitality has been able to reduce hardware costs for investors, protect corporate and guest data in secure off-property locations. Benchmark Hospitality uses a 'private' cloud platform to host their properties systems and data and they have centralized their property accounting systems.

The article discusses the changes to come within the GDS Travelfusion. The changes would be the inclusion of China, which would be a great expansion. Travel fusion will now allow people in china to book travel and have access to not only book travel but have access to contact support in chinese. The article discusses the different locations of travel that can be booked from china. This in my opinion is def a great for the chinese, seeing that they have a great deal of travel going out its great that they can have a low cost site that helps find the best deals for travels.

After Benchmark invested in the hospitality industry's first 'private' cloud platform to host its properties' systems and data three years ago, the company has expanded to more than 38 properties. All Benchmark systems and property data are centrally hosted at the data center, and Profitvue handles accounting for Benchmark's conference centers, resorts, and condos. The Profitvue enterprise accounting system is flexible so reports can be built that compare metrics from similar properties. PCI compliance was another advantage of Benchmark moving data to the cloud.

Having a clear understand of what makes a great hotel, resort, or conference centre and how to run it profitably is an essential part for a successful management company. Benchmark Hospitality International win the market through its day-to-day management decisions on the numbers. They built a  centralized 'private cloud' technology hub and data gathering platform based on which the managers can make decisions every morning while not wait until month end or later to see property financials. The private cloud helps to reduce its ownership costs and to protect data. Benchmark also uses the Internet-enabled Profitvue enterprise back office system from Aptech Computer System to centralized property accounting.  This is technology plays an important part of hotel operations. The Profivue back office accounting system is internet-enabled, so a PC is the only back-office hardware. The same for the front office systems. It is a great saving for its owners. Since Profivue is flexible enough for Benchmark to have a standard chart of accounts and general ledger for all its properties, Benchmark can quickly integrate a new property into Benchmark's processes. It just bring financial team members from other properties, who are familiar with the system and chart and G/L. So a new property can be ran very quickly without the usual hardware and software installation and staff training. Another advantage of this system is that Benchmark's financial stockholders, management teams, and guests benefit a lot from it, so they always support these innovations, which can later stimulate the company's success. Applying new technology in operation management can help company win a larger market share and develop fast.

Priceline has launched their online same day booking application for iPhone users.  The app will soon be available for Android users as well. Travelers are able to search for last minute inventory from 165 countries and 200,000 properties, the app shows a list of available hotels in the area of the device the user is using to search for hotels.  The quick 2 step process to booking a hotel is easy to use and user friendly, guests also get a map with directions on their display to help them find their hotel.  This technology was introduced last year and had secured $1 billion in transactions 40% of the mobile bookings were for the same day reservations. Today's travelers and consumers are looking for instant deals, bookings, and conformation, with the technology of this app and the continued improvements consumers continue to be in their favor. 

UK-based Diet Chef delivers ready-made low-fat meals to some 25,000 customers. With current sales of around 30m dollars in 2011, founder Kevin Dorren is planning an aggressive expansion into Italy, France and Germany.  Issues of payment methods (Germans don't use credit cards online), where to source ingredients, shipping to and from the UK, and whether or not it's blasphemous for an Italian to eat lasagna made in Britain are proving to be quite challenging. 

This article discusses how red lion hotels secured a $45 million loan the 15 year amortization maturing in June 2018 proceeds were used to refinance maturing debt and pay expenses in connection with the transaction. The transaction is being done with Wells Fargo. Red lion hotels Corporation is a hospitality company that is engaged in ownership franchising and operation hotels in 10 states is of May 29 they had 53 hotels system wide

This article is about the discussion of HOSPACE expansion. HOSPA(Hospitality Professionals Association for Finance, Revenue Management and IT) and its partner HFTP(Hospitality Financial Technology Professionals) decided to make another big development for HOSPACE. I think the alliance of this two organization will create better resuts and improvement for the financial technology in the future.

Paladion, a cyber security intelligence platform, has been incredibly successful with its services. Its most recent success was its' raising of ten million dollars in fresh funding from its investment holders. This capital will be put towards advancing the security system, building a comprehensive cloud security services platform, and global expansion of multiple Security Operation Centers. The company already provides an array of information risk management solutions and services. And its industry expertise includes sectors like banking-finance-insurance, IT & consulting, R&D, and telecommunications. Paladion is on the track for prolonged success and will continue to grow as more advancements are made.