partnerships that can add value to our hotels are at the heart of the business. As a start-up facing off against global NASDAQ-listed and well-established brands, it was quite daunting, but hotels understood our argument and philosophy and gave us the opportunity to exclusively represent them on the GDS under our proprietary HO chain code. These hotels are notably still with us nearly 20 years later, and we are immensely grateful to them for their support. HotelREZ has grown by way of reputation and word of mouth. I think in the first two years we onboarded around 200 hotels. Today, the company is ranked amongst the largest (and we would like to think the best) hotel consortia in the world. We represent independent hotels, groups, apart-hotels and large private label-branded clients worldwide. HotelREZ is a B2B brand. We did not go down the road of the soft-branded players; our key focus has been to provide best-in-class technology, supported by global partnerships that drive incremental revenue to hotels, which is underpinned by excellent levels of support that exceed expectations. Education is critical in the relationship with hotels, Outstanding Leadership for Hotel Services Company of the Year CEO, HotelREZ Hotels & Resorts Mark Lewis www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today United Kingdom Awards 2023 15 What led you to found HotelREZ in 2004, and in what ways have you seen it develop since then? At the time of HotelREZ’s formation, the distribution sector had pivoted away from the term and meaning of ‘hotel representation’ to a technology-focused strategy that would in theory be the panacea of all ills. The pursuit of pure SAAS-based models meant ultimately that hotels would get a myriad of technology solutions but could then have little support, guidance or ability to leverage it, not least because of continual staff turnover in many properties. I felt there was a balance needed between cuttingedge technology and ensuring the hotels were able to optimise this to generate the ROI and fair-share market position they needed. Consequently, I founded HotelREZ in 2004 based on quality representation and distribution. Service, revenue management and global preferred partnerships with the world’s largest TMCs, niche agencies, corporates and lateral strategic Mark Lewis is CEO and founder of HotelREZ Hotels & Resorts. A graduate of the University of Wales, Mark boasts a background in foreign currency trading and later tour operating, primarily in the area of hotel contracting and product development, before moving into hotel distribution and representation with what was then Utell International. HotelREZ was founded in 2004. The company connects hotels seamlessly to the booker market worldwide via the Global Distribution Systems (GDS: Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport – Galileo/ WorldSpan), with connections to over 750,000 travel agents and over 400 OTAs and Tour Operators. Additionally, HotelREZ provides state of the art booking engines, web design, metasearch and digital marketing along with full integration to hotel property management systems, revenue management systems and CRM/loyalty solutions.
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