Williamson plans to retire from full time executive roles and to seek non-executive director and chairman positions within the travel industry.
JacTravel’s deputy chief executive Peter Clements will assume Williamson’s position, having joined the company after its acquisition of the TotalStay Group in 2015 – a firm he founded 16 years earlier.
London-based B2B platform JacTravel operates two brands - JacTravel and totalstay.com, both of which will now become part of the B2B WebBeds division through the acquisition by Webjet, which is due to complete at the end of the month.
JacTravel will join Sunhotels, Lots of Hotels and FIT Ruums in WebBeds.
Williamson has been at the helm of JacTravel since 2009 and in that time the company has achieved compound annual growth in revenue of more than 26%. He also led the sale to its current owners, Vitruvian Partners in 2014 for £80 million.
Williamson said: “Since I joined the business in 2009 I have been very fortunate to work with so many
excellent people at JacTravel.
“The team has grown from 130 people back then to more than 550 today - a business which had £72 million turnover has grown to over £400 million, and now distributes in 92 countries, with 14 offices worldwide, serving 17,000 customers and 170,000 hotel partners.
“This could never have been achieved without the energy, passion, spirit and customer service ethos that is special to JacTravel.
“It is thanks to the combined efforts of every member of staff that the business has done so well and achieved so much.
“I have every confidence that the company under Webjet’s ownership and Peter’s leadership will continue to prosper and go from strength to strength. I expect the success story to continue.”
Prior to joining JacTravel Williamson was chief executive at the educational and student travel company School Travel Group, and led the sale of the business in 2008 for £97 million.
Previous roles included chief executive of tour operations for Monarch Travel Group and managing director of UK tour operations for Thomas Cook Group.
