News Briefs

Shift4, a provider of integrated payments and commerce technology, announced a comprehensive partnership with Alterra Mountain Company, the operator of 19 premier mountain destinations. Shift4 will power all payments across all of Alterra’s properties, streamlining transactions for hotels, restaurants, lift ticket sales, and the company’s Ikon Pass online sales.

Alterra Mountain Company is world-renowned for its portfolio of mountain destinations, offering premier outdoor experiences to skiers and riders across North America. With this partnership, Shift4 will enhance the guest experience at Alterra's destinations by providing a seamless, secure, and efficient payment infrastructure that supports everything from lodging and dining to ticketing and online purchases.

“Enhancing the guest experience is at the heart of everything we do, and Shift4’s commerce solutions will help us continue to deliver a frictionless experience for our guests, both on-site and online,” said Gui Karyo, Chief Technology Officer, Alterra Mountain Company. “Their expertise in managing high-volume payment environments across multiple touchpoints makes Shift4 the ideal partner as we continue to grow and enhance our destinations.”

“We are excited to partner with Alterra Mountain Company to power payments at their incredible destinations across North America,” said Michael Isaacman, Shift4’s Chief Commercial Officer. “Our technology is designed to simplify and secure the entire commerce experience, from purchasing an Ikon Pass online or a lift ticket at the resort to paying for your hotel room or a meal at the lodge. We look forward to helping Alterra deliver an exceptional and seamless experience for guests across all destinations.”

Shift4’s solutions are trusted by leading resorts, sports venues, and entertainment destinations worldwide, transforming the way guests interact with payments across industries. To learn more about Shift4’s capabilities in the travel and hospitality industry, visit shift4.com/hospitality.

MGM Resorts International has completed the deployment of the next generation Amadeus Central Reservation System (ACRS) across MGM Resorts’ North American hotels, including Las Vegas and regional hotels. The cloud based ACRS offers advanced distribution capabilities enabling MGM Resorts to efficiently connect with its branded and third-party distribution channels.

As Amadeus’ second ACRS customer, MGM Resorts has been working collaboratively to implement ACRS as the newest top-tier hospitality central reservation platform. MGM Resorts and Amadeus have also cooperated on several innovative ACRS capabilities, including those supporting MGM Resorts’ strategic business partnerships. 

This new implementation addresses MGM Resorts’ goals to substantially reduce manual data management within its distribution ecosystem and prioritize its advanced connection strategy with key third-party partners.

ACRS offers technology architecture that further enables ultra-high availability and ultra-fast response times, meeting the needs of all hotel types from global chains to independent luxury hotels and resorts.

“We chose to move forward with Amadeus based on the potential we saw in the ACRS,” says Sarah Fults, Vice President Distribution, MGM Resorts. “With the strong process-oriented approach Amadeus is known for, we knew that together we could augment ACRS with what was needed for MGM Resorts. We are delighted to now be live across all of our North American hotel properties and look forward to the continued innovations possible through our partnership with Amadeus.”  

Peter Waters, EVP, Hotel IT, Hospitality, Amadeus comments, “I’m excited to continue to bring Amadeus’ next generation ACRS Hospitality platform to the industry through our exceptional partnership with MGM Resorts.  With its unique attribute-based data modeling and other market-leading technologies, ACRS transforms the way hotels can provide personalized merchandising to their guests. From global chains to independent and luxury hotels, ACRS empowers hoteliers to increase revenues, enhance the guest experience and improve operational efficiency.”

Cognizant and Travelport, a global technology company that powers bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, today announced a new agreement aimed at evolving Travelport's global infrastructure by leveraging Cognizant Neuro® IT Operations platform, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation services. 

The partnership, which has been ongoing for more than a decade, aims to further empower Travelport to simplify complexities in travel retailing with the ability to quickly adapt to changing priorities in the market and scale with demand. The renewed partnership will prioritize driving automation, enhancing reliability, and ultimately modernizing the experience Travelport delivers to its customers worldwide.

"This new agreement underscores our commitment to leveraging advanced automation and cloud services aiming to advance Travelport's global infrastructure. By leveraging Cognizant Neuro® IT Operations platform, we aim to enhance the agility, reliability, and customer-centricity of Travelport's global travel retailing platform, Travelport+. This partnership not only addresses current objectives to modernize processes but also sets the stage for a more efficient and future-ready travel ecosystem," said Anup Prasad, Senior Vice President & Head of Cognizant's Consumer Business Unit.

Travelport's unique role in providing backend systems and a marketplace for airlines, hotels, car rental companies and railways to connect seamlessly with travel retailers underscores the significance of this agreement. Travelport stands out for its niche services, such as the ability to deliver multi-source travel content in a “retail-ready” way to travel agencies, online travel agencies and corporate travel management companies around the world. The streamlined infrastructure aims to lower operational costs, foster new skill sets for the Travelport team, and significantly minimize transition risks.

"Our extended partnership with Cognizant aims to help accelerate processes with advanced automation solutions. This deal signifies a meaningful step toward a more streamlined future for Travelport as we drive modern retailing forward for our agency customers, industry partners and travelers," said Bates Turpen, Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer at Travelport.

The partnership between Cognizant and Travelport marks a significant milestone in advancing innovation and operational efficiency within the travel sector. Drawing upon state-of-the-art technologies and extensive industry knowledge, Cognizant aims to establish a new standard for cooperative excellence, empowering Travelport to drive the continually evolving global travel industry into a bold new era.

Serko Ltd. announced the appointment of Tarun Phaugat as Vice President of Engineering, effective immediately.

Phaugat has more than two decades of engineering leadership experience within the enterprise and travel technology sectors, most recently serving as engineering lead for the Uber for Business platform, and previously in senior roles at Airbnb, Apple and Microsoft.

As VP of Engineering, Phaugat will spearhead the continuous innovation and modernization of Serko’s platform, a key pillar in Serko’s growth strategy across the SME and Enterprise business travel market.

“At Serko, we are focused on building the most innovative technology platform, both for today’s business travel industry and for the challenges that lie ahead,” said Simon Young, CTO at Serko. “Tarun’s experience in delivering groundbreaking technology solutions is ideal, and we know that he will be a driving force to scale our ongoing innovation efforts, including our Indian Development Hub. We could not be happier to add Tarun to our team.”

In addition to his role as VP of Engineering, Phaugat will also serve as a leader in the strategic and operational growth of Serko’s Development Hub in Bengaluru, and join Serko’s Booking.com for Business Leadership Team.

"Innovation is core to Serko’s technology DNA,” said Phaugat. “From its embrace of automation to creating category leaders with Zeno and Booking.com for Business, Serko’s track record of providing solutions that tackle the most pressing business travel challenges is second to none. The Serko team is renowned for its technology talent, and I cannot wait to work alongside such a stellar team as we build the future of the Serko travel platform.”

This announcement follows Serko’s recent announcement of an accelerated program of innovation with plans to invest US$100 million over the next three years to enhance its platform technology and deliver the next generation of business travel solutions.

Paul Macaluso will be joining Torchy’s Tacos as Chief Executive Officer, effective February 24. He succeeds founder Mike Rypka, who will transition into a new role as Chief Innovation Officer.

Macaluso has more than 30 years of experience building respected brands and driving business success across the restaurant industry. Most recently, he served as President and CEO of Another Broken Egg Cafe, a high-growth daytime-only restaurant concept, overseeing significant business and footprint expansion. He also previously held progressive marketing and leadership roles at GoTo Foods (formerly FOCUS Brands), a developer of global multi-channel foodservice brands, including President of McAlister’s Deli, as well as Senior Vice President leading brand marketing strategy for Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Cinnabon, McAlister’s Deli, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and Schlotzsky’s.  Macaluso has also served in senior brand and marketing positions at SONIC Drive-In and Burger King Corp.

The Torchy’s Board of Directors commented, “After an in-depth search, we are thrilled to welcome Paul to Torchy’s. His long track record of delivering growth across iconic large-scale and up-and-coming restaurant brands makes him uniquely suited to lead Torchy’s through its next chapter. We are also grateful to Mike for his dedicated leadership over the years and look forward to his continued contributions.”