Carlson Wagonlit Travel
| Privately held company | |
| Industry | Travel agencies |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | Minnetonka, Minnesota |
Key people | Kurt Ekert (CEO) |
| Products | Traveler and transaction services, program optimization, safety and security, meetings and events |
| Revenue | $27.80 billion USD[1] |
| Owner | Carlson |
Number of employees | 22,000[1] |
| Website | Official website |
Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) is a privately held travel management company owned by Carlson Companies that previously handled both business and leisure clients. The company sold its leisure business to a consortium formed by the management of that business in 2008.
It operates in 174 countries and territories, with 22,000 employees. According to Business Travel News Online.com, in 2007, CWT surpassed American Express Business Travel and became the world's largest business travel management company. The company has $27.8 billion in annual sales (including joint ventures) in 2008, from 55 million transactions.
History
The group has existed in its present form since 1994, the result of a 50%/50% merger from two large travel agency ventures. The Carlson side was originally from the Ask Mr. Foster Travel Agency chain, which had been rebranded to Carlson Travel Network a decade earlier. The Wagonlit part came from the travel shop business of Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. After the merger, Accor maintained its 50% interest up until 2006. Accor sold its shares in a transaction worth €500m, thereby placing a value of €1bn on CWT at the time.
On June 22, 2014, the company announced that Carlson, a privately held corporation in the hotel, marketing, restaurant, and travel industries which owned a 55% stake in the company, would purchase the remaining 45%, held by JPMorgan Chase.[2]
In 2011, Carlson Leisure's Macy's Travel were rebranded as Carlson Wagonlit Travel; the stores were located in former Marshall Field's department stores and were known as Marshall Field's Travel before the stores were purchased by Macy's; Marshall Field's was owned by Twin Cities-based Target Corporation, similar to Carlson Wagonlit Travel co-owner Carlson Companies. Macy's Travel had joined Carlson Wagonlit Travel in 2006 when TQ3Navigant was purchased by CWT.[3]
References
- 1 2 "CWT at a Glance". Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Archived from the original on 2008-09-30. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
- ↑ , Minneapolis Star Tribune, accessed June 23, 2014.
- ↑ , Carlson Wagonlit Travel, accessed April 12, 2010.