Hotelbeds executive chairman Joan Vilà has stepped back from the role after 32 years with the company.
Vilà is taking up a non-executive director role on the board of the Palma, Spain-based company and is handing the reins to newly appointed CEO, Nicolas Huss.
He had originally planned to step back from day-to-day operations but delayed his decision when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Huss has a background in the financial and payments industry, including his former position CEO of Ingenico and Visa Europe.
He says he brings a “track record of driving organic growth and digital transformation” to the table as well experience of “highly-transactional businesses.”
Huss is not a stranger to the travel industry having been a non-executive board director at Amadeus board for four years.
Vilà says: “With the appointment of Nicolas Huss, we are welcoming a highly experienced CEO with an incredible track record in the areas of B2B, travel and payments and we are very much look forward to the significant contribution and perspective he will bring to the company.
"Together with Hotelbeds’ greatly respected Executive team, including COO Carlos Muñoz and CFO Andrés García-Tenorio, we are ready and able to further build on our incredible success story.”
He adds that the company is primed to take advantage of the recovery in travel having “invested in digitilization, automation and strengthening the balance sheet” during the pandemic.
Hotelbeds has also announced that Richard Solomans, a former CEO of Intercontinental Hotels Group and currently chairman of Hotelbeds advisory committee, will also take on the role of non-executive chairman of the board.