Opodo is an Internet travel agency website. It is a pan-European enterprise, founded by a consortium of European airlines, including British Airways, Air France, Alitalia, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines and Finnair. The travel technology provider Amadeus now owns 99.4% of the company. Opodo offers a full worldwide range of travel products including flights (from more than 500 scheduled and low-cost airlines), hotels, car hire, dynamic packaging, city breaks, package holidays, excursions, ski holidays and cottages. Opodo's present turnover has reached €1.3 billion in gross sales, as of 2008.[1]
Opodo operates out of thirteen European countries, with headquarters in London, UK. It operates Opodo-branded sites in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland, as well as Travellink-branded sites in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. It also operates several other French travel websites.
Opodo launched its first site in Germany in November 2001, its UK site in January 2002, its French site in April 2002 and its Italian site in January 2006.
The name "opodo" is a natural ambigram, with rotational symmetry. The name "opodo" was selected because it does not mean anything in any of the European languages, thus ensuring that all of the countries treat it as a 'foreign' website. The word opodo stands for "OPportunity tO DO"
Unlike most other booking sites, Opodo's site still quotes headline prices without including tax.
Giovanni Bisignani, former CEO of Alitalia and present CEO of IATA (International Air Travel Association) was opodo's first CEO. Nicolas De Santis former CMO of web currency beenz.com and CEO of Corporate Vision Strategists was opodo's first director of marketing, sales and strategy.
Ignacio Martos is the present CEO of Opodo.