The number of participating agencies exceeded in Foster acquired Don Travel Service Inc. Foster offices in early In , Carlson Travel acquired a 76 percent interest in the A. Mays travel agency chain, the fourth-largest in the United Kingdom. It was eventually renamed Carlson Worldchoice. Mays was Carlson's first major overseas acquisition. A wave of consolidation had begun among travel agencies in the United States and United Kingdom. The Ask Mr. Foster name was retired in April , replaced by that of Carlson Travel Network.
The new name conveyed both the connection to the Carlson-owned restaurants and hotels as well as the existence of a global distribution network. Also in , operations at the company were restructured into commercial and retail sides, while computing and accounting operations were centralized at its Minneapolis headquarters. Carlson had acquired a company specializing in travel management software, CompuCheck Corp. He was returning to the unit after four years as head of Walt Disney Travel Co.
Carlson Travel Network soon underwent a restructuring aimed at delegating more decision-making to local and regional offices. The unit had about 6, employees at the time. The next year, in March , Carlson Travel announced the merger of its business travel operations with those of Paris-based Wagonlit Travel Compagnie Internationale des Wagon-Lits et du Tourisme , a unit of the Accor Group SA, a French tourism and business service conglomerate that also owned Novotel, Sofitel, and Motel 6 hotels and car rental agencies.
Accor was the largest travel and hospitality company operating outside the United States. Carlson's independent foreign franchises were not included in the deal. Carlson Wagonlit had 4, offices in countries; 2, of these came from Carlson Travel.
The combined operations booked 24 million airline and train tickets a year, plus seven million hotel stays and six million days of car rentals. The merger made Carlson Wagonlit competitive for large multinational businesses, such as GE, that were beginning to switch to single vendors for their travel needs.
The merger created new possibilities for monitoring global spending trends for these clients. The process of integrating Wagonlit Travel's information systems with Carlson Travel's was a five-year endeavor.
Carlson Wagonlit soon unveiled a branded Visa credit card for 85, of its accounts, intensifying its competition with American Express AmEx. Carlson Travel president described the consolidation trend in Business Week: "In , you had to be national.
In , you have to be global. Around the same time, it rolled out Mercavia, an extranet for providing travel agents with information that included video clips. The first online travel agency had been rolled out in , and the field was already crowded, including offerings from Microsoft Corp. However, CWT executives believed their bricks-and-mortar agencies offered unparalleled customer service opportunities.
CWT continued to expand in Britain. The transaction underscores CWT's commitment to India's corporate travel market. CWT acquires Maritz Corporate Travel in the United States in March, and Onboard in Germany in October, demonstrating its continuous commitment to playing a leading role in the consolidation of the travel management industry.
This new service configuration is designed to handle multinational clients with business travelers in several European cities from a single business travel center. The new company is the first truly global travel services company with international management. Ask Mr. Foster changes its name to Carlson Travel Network, to capitalize on the professionalism, strength, and synergy of the Carlson Companies.
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