much on references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . september 2008 learn how and when to remove this template message carlson wagonlit travel type 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 edit 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 edit a b cwt at a glance . carlson wagonlit travel . retrieved 2008 09 05 . 1 minneapolis star tribune accessed june 23 2014 . 2 carlson wagonlit travel accessed april 12 2010 . external links edit carlson wagonlit travel carlson v t e carlson hotels country inns & suites hotel missoni park inn park plaza radisson radisson blu travel carlson wagonlit travel authority control worldcat identities viaf 312727221 sudoc 067093620 bnf cb135128350 data retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title carlson wagonlit travel & oldid 743183840 categories companies based in minnesotatravel agenciesprivately held companies of francetravel managementhidden categories articles lacking reliable references from september 2008all articles lacking reliable referenceswikipedia articles with viaf identifierswikipedia articles with bnf identifiers navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran ais suomisvenska edit links this page was last modified on 8 october 2016 at 10 07 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view