- Western Union and Canada’s leading travel agency will pair up as part of a partnership
- WU’s tools and sector-specific knowledge will be on offer for members of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, or ACTA
- “As one of the world’s leading providers of cross-border business payments, Western Union is transforming how businesses can expand globally through one of the largest and most diverse payment networks in the world”, says Western Union
Internationally recognised payments service name Western Union has announced that it will pair up with the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies.
The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA) is a membership-based association which advocates on behalf of the country’s travel agents and attempts to make their professional lives easier.
The new partnership will offer the 12,000 members of the organisation, which are individual agents, the chance to use Western Union business tools.
Members of ACTA will now be able to use a solutions package which offers access to the worldwide payment sending and receipt network of Western Union. They will be able to access 200 nations and territories a result and will be able to deal more effectively in 130 currencies.
The members will also be able to access the knowledge and experience that Western Union has built up during its years in the cross-border payments business.
Over four-fifths of travel spending reserved via a travel agency in Canada is handled by an ACTA member.
According to Vice President of Canada for Western Union Business Solutions, Roy Farah, the new partnership looks set to be “driving value” back into the sector.
“We look forward to this new collaboration with ACTA, helping their members reduce costs and driving value back into the travel industry”, he argued.
“As one of the world’s leading providers of cross-border business payments, Western Union is transforming how businesses can expand globally through one of the largest and most diverse payment networks in the world.”
For ACTA, President Wendy Paradis said the tools were “valuable”.
“Western Union offers valuable business tools and consultation for our members, helping to ease the complexity of international money movement”, she argued.
The quote from Western Union’s Roy Farah is a telling one here. With this partnership, the firm – which is probably the world’s most well-known money transfer service – sees itself as “driving value back into” a sector that it considers to be flagging. Perhaps because of the rise of Airbnb and other challenges to the traditional travel agency model.
This reveals something about Western Union’s strategy for some of its new partnerships: by identifying industries which are not doing too well, it can more easily find organisations that are desperate for the business tools that offer some hope for improvement.
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