Mark ItenMark Iten, a Swiss national and Chairman of the Board of ITO AG, is one of the founding fathers of ITO AG, alongside Axel Graenitz and Hans Hammer. Mark’s focus is on the development of new markets, destination products and hotel resorts.
Mark Iten began his career in the travel & tourism industry, where he learnt about tourism from scratch. One of his early roles included a five year stint at Hotelplan AG. Mark also worked for a number of years at one of the world's leading International Management Consulting Firms, PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
In his current role as a Chairman of the Board of ITO AG, Mark focuses on the development and implementation of tourism master plans for countries, governments, regions or high profile organisations, as well as financial services for large corporations, all within the travel & tourism industry.
Mark is also a member of the board of various medium-sized companies in Switzerland. His international network of partners and associates is a formidable asset when it comes to implementing hotel resort development projects across the world.
Hans HammerHans Hammer is one of the original founding fathers of ITO, alongside Mark Iten and Axel Gränitz. ITO's initial 'raison d' etre' was - and remains - to provide services to the tourism industry, especially in the field of planning, launch and development of websites, as well as regional expertise (master plans), with the idea of sustainability as added value, matchmaking, strategic consulting and other related fields.
Hammer AG has over 50 years of experience in real estate and infrastructure development all over the world. Together with its daughter company WIP, which has been an important player in the fields of renewable energy, environmental technologies and sea water desalination since the 80s, Hammer AG is uniquely placed to provide expert advice in the arena of development, planning and the impact and contribution of the latest technologies on environmentally friendly and thus sustainable projects.
Additionally Hammer AG can bring in its knowledge of the German and Russian real estate market.
In some specific cases, where high profile projects are involved, Hammer AG may be able to bring on board a number of investors or/and invest themselves into the project. Axel GränitzAxel Gränitz, a German National, whom over the past 15 years has been working in several leading positions within the International Tourism Industry.
Axel started out by forming his own exhibition company in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which he shortly after followed with IBCO GmbH, a specialist consulting company for European companies exporting to the Middle East.
After a year as Vice President of IBG Investment Company GmbH, he joined as a Member of the Board of GATO AG, a Joint Venture between the BTW – Germany Tourism Association and the German Arab Chamber of Commerce.
Over six years as a Board Member, shareholder and founder of GATO, he worked on projects, for governments and clients all over the world and developed the Tourism Projects and Masterplans for countries such as Mauretania, South Africa, Venezuela, Panama, Qatar, UAE and Madagascar.
In recent years he has been Director of Sales & Business Development for Arvato Services (a Bertelsmann AG – subsidiary) specialising in development for the Tourism Industry and in Loyalty Programs and Frequent Flyer Programs for the Airline Industry. Along with this Axel developed SkyShops, a Reward Shop for the Airline Industry. One of his latest Projects was the foundation and establishment of “the Emirates High Street”, a reward Shop for Emirates Airlines. Beside this he has worked with airlines such as Finnair, Etihad and American Airlines.
As of October this year he has been appointed as Member of the Board of Dussmann AG & Co KG, a top tier company, with more than 50.000 employees. Here Axel is in charge of the world wide subsidiaries with more than 29.000 employees and a turnover of around 1,36 billion Euro.
Axel is founder member and CEO of ITO International Tourism Organisation AG. He is a member of the Near and Middle East Association and Member of the Board of the Ghorfa Arab German Chamber of Commerce.
Daniela WagnerDaniela Wagner has over 20 years experience in the global travel and tourism industry. After making her debut in the traditional tour operating sector, she successfully launched the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) in the 1990s.
She spent 6 years at the World Travel & Tourism Council as Vice President of Corporate Affairs.
For 4 years, she was Global Managing Director of OctopusTravel, a major online accommodation intermediary present in over 40 markets, offering over 22,000 hotels as well as other travel related services and with a turnover of 350 million USD.
More recently, she established a global partners programme with Tralliance, the Fort Lauderdale .travel registry.
In 2008, Daniela founded eWaterways with Soren Langelund and became its CEO. eWaterways is an expert in niche cruising and offers journeys with the comfort of on-board accommodation and a scenic, more intimate alternative to ocean-going mega-ship cruise liners. eWaterways has an electronic distribution channel and reservation service for small ships, yachts and deluxe barges cruising along coastal waterways, rivers and canals all over the world.
Daniela is a linguist (fluent German and French) by training and lives in the UK with her family.
Soren LangelundSoren Langelund, a multilingual Danish National, has more than 30 years experience as a global player in the Travel Industry. His expertise ranges from Operations, Business Process Reengineering, to Online Technology and Marketing.
He started out in Operations with Europe’s first direct sell Tour Operator “Tjaereborg”, where he spent 12 years in various managerial and Director positions, based in the Middle East, South East Asia and the UK. This was followed by 6 years as Head of Travel Services - EMEA for RCI Europe.
Soren was the first customer to introduce Satellite Ticket Printing into Pan European distribution together with the GDS Amadeus. Later, at American Express Corporate Travel, as Vice President Re-engineering he was responsible for consolidation of their Corporate Travel Network across Europe.
As on-line travel booking systems emerged, Soren left Amex to develop the travel systems and build the business processes for OPODO, where he later became Head of Business Development. He subsequently joined Octopustravel.com as Director for Asia and as Global Head of Business Development, restructuring the business and opening five new Asian markets.
Following the acquisition by Cendant, he took on the job as Vice President Operations for all of Cendant’s International Consumer facing On-line companies.
Soren continuously looks for innovation in the Industry and is currently also Director for Mobile Travel Technologies, developing a fifth booking and distribution platform in Asia Pacific. Soren is a member of the UK Institute of Directors. He is an experienced speaker and moderator at travel industry conferences, and is widely engaged with the industry through his chairmanship on the ETOA (European Tour Operators Association) e-Commerce Committee.
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