In a statement, the OTA said Roche had played an “instrumental” part in the firm’s growth in his role as chief commercial officer since he joined from Travel Republic in March 2015.

Roche will be staying on as an advisor at Loveholidays.com.

Upon announcing his departure, Roche said he believed the time was right to look for a “new challenge”.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time helping Loveholidays.com grow to become a top 10 UK travel business and I am proud of the accomplishments we have achieved over the past couple of years.

“I wish all members of the Loveholidays.com team the very best and am sure the business will go from strength to strength,” he added.

Loveholidays.com said: “During Chris’s time we have more than doubled the size of our team, strengthened our trading performance as well as more than doubling our Atol passengers.

“Chris has built an in-house operational function, scaled up our commercial capability, helped build a management team and more recently helped build a hotel contracting team.”