Corporations welcomed the new year by booking more travel, according to Pegasus Solutions, the single largest processor of electronic hotel transactions. After holding steady at 2011 levels in December 2012, January 2013 surged ahead with booking gains of nearly +8% for the global corporate market, a performance that was exceeded in the leisure sector.

Pegasus Solutions has named Ariel Herr vice president, communications and marketing services. A 12-year agency veteran, Herr assumes management of Pegasus’ new Communications and Marketing Services division, which manages all communication for Pegasus’ 18 offices worldwide with nearly 100,000 hotel clients, as well as global prospects.

Pegasus Solutions has evolved Utell into Pegasus Connect. The new offering combines Pegasus’ powerful distribution, booking and business intelligence solutions with Utell marketing-related services.

Open Hospitality, a division of Pegasus Solutions, is now offering Google Hotel Price Ads (HPA) to hotels following a successful pilot with more than 50 hotels. Hotel clients using Open Hospitality reservation and booking services can opt to drive traffic from search results in Google Search, Google Maps, Google Places and the Google Hotel Finder directly to the brand website to increase more profitable direct bookings.

Pegasus Solutions has named hospitality sales veteran Chris Wichers as chief sales officer. Wichers comes to the newly created role after serving as executive vice president of Open Hospitality, a division of Pegasus Solutions.

Pegasus Solutions and TravelSky Technology, China’s state-owned global distribution system, have completed a connection that makes Pegasus’ global hotel inventory of nearly 100,000 hotels available for booking in China. With more than 1,000 hotels under nine brands, Starwood Hotels & Resorts is the first Pegasus customer to go live on the connection.