Opodo has strengthened its presence in the French marketplace with its latest acquisition of French Internet travel agency Vivacances.
Vivacances launched in 2002 and offers the full range of travel products including flights, hotels, car hire, trains and package holidays.
Simon Vincent, CEO of Opodo commented, “Today’s acquisition is the next step in Opodo’s aggressive growth strategy, which over the last six months has seen us grow from three to nine markets and trending towards a billion euros in gross sales by the end of 2005. In France, we now own three core online travel brands - Opodo.fr, Promovacances (Karavel) and Vivacances - together these will strengthen the overall Opodo Group market position in the key French market.”

Petra Friedmann, Country Manager for Opodo France continued, “We look forward to working closely with Galeries Lafayette and serving our joint customers through the extremely successful S’Miles loyalty programme. By uniting Opodo and Vivacances, we will also enjoy increased purchasing power and broaden our consumer appeal.”

France is the second largest and one of the fastest growing European markets for online travel with Euro 7 billion gross sales forecast to be sold in 2005. The Opodo companies in France reflect this growth as they continue to go from strength to strength.  In the first quarter of 2005, Opodo.fr experienced a 96% growth compared to Q1 2004, whilst Karavel increased by 75% year on year.
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