First and Only Leader of Hotelbeds Steps Aside for New CEO Charged With Amping Up Digitization
Skift Take
It's an occasion to pause and appreciate the accomplishment of Joan Vilà, who created Hotelbeds and led it to become the world's largest bedbank. But looking ahead, Hotelbeds must rev up its digital metabolism.
Hotelbeds said on Wednesday it had installed a new CEO, Nicolas Huss, to lead the travel technology business.
Huss takes the reins as Joan Vilà is stepping aside from his role as executive chairman. Vilà has led the Palma, Spain-based company since its creation in 2001, scaling it to become the market leader among wholesale distributors of hotel room inventory.
Hotelbeds' controlling investors Cinven, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and EQT, tapped an outsider to be the company's CEO. Huss, the former CEO of Ingenico and Visa Europe, now confronts the task of speeding up the company's digitization.
Hotelbeds didn't have a CEO before. It had an executive chairperson and managing directors. Huss's team includes chief operating officer Carlos Muñoz and chief financial officer Andrés García-Tenorio.
"Coming from a digital background, I truly believe that this is an industry which is well-positioned to capitalize on the benefits of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation," Huss said. "If we can become even more frictionless — and if we can keep adding value by providing more data granularity to our partners and therefore to their end customers — we will rebound even faster."
The pandemic took the shine off the company's narrative of year-over-year growth.
In December, Hotelbeds received a cash injection of $210 million (€175 million) via its current backers to give it more time to turn around its credit metrics before a futur
