New Opodo boss and marketing in the early days

It's been a few weeks now since Simon Vincent revealed he would be quitting as boss of the Amadeus-owned Opodo online travel agency for the world of direct selling with Hilton.

So, surely it must be time to speculate who might be in the frame for the job in the New Year.

A very well-informed source - i.e. a senior figure familiar with the process - told us this morning that the ideal person for the chief executive position would be someone from the marketing-consumer world, and not necessarily from within the travel industry.

Let the rumour-mill turn a little bit on that one.

In the meantime, demonstrating how important OTAs used to place - and still do? - on pay-per-click advertising, it turns out that Opodo spent somewhere between £300,000 and £400,000 in the first six months after its launch in 2001 in order to ensure it appeared in the Number One position for EVERY travel-related keyword.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution