Mark Lewis

Starting his career with Thomas Cook Foreign Money in the dealing room, Mark Lewis fell in love with the travel sector. After graduating with a BA (Honours) in Business and Tourism from the University of Wales, Mark paused a legal career to work for a specialist tour operator Manos Holidays, including establishing its first air charter into Kerala and running operations in India, before roles with luxury tour operator Five Star Group (founded by Sir Alan Sugar), and Pegasus Solutions (now Cendyn), where he was responsible for sales across EMEA and APAC. In 2004, Mark founded HotelREZ, creating one of the largest and highly awarded hotel distribution consortia, as well as launching World Rainbow Hotels, the world’s only GDS-enabled consortia for the LGBTQ+ market. More recently, HotelREZ acquired British hospitality brand Best Loved Hotels, opened the company’s first owned luxury hotel in Mykonos, Greece, and launched the Elegant Hotel Collection, a full-service luxury soft brand delivering best-in-class distribution operations, technology, sales and marketing services to a curated global network of unique and inspiring luxury hotels. A former AITO board member, Mark’s belief that revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king has been the driving ethos behind HotelREZ’s success. His refreshing approach to business has produced multiple accolades including CEO of the Year and Hotel Services Company of the Year from CEO UK Awards (August 2023), Most Innovative Companies & CEO by CIO Magazine (June 2023), and HotelREZ named as one of the world’s top 15 hotel companies by Hotels Magazine (July 2023).