Acendas Travel, a travel management company headquartered in Minneapolis and Kansas City, has acquired Edina Travel.
Acendas provides corporate/business, vacation/leisure and meeting/incentives travel services Among its clients are the Minnesota Wild. Acendas provides some player movement and scout and front office travel for the team.
The addition of Edina Travel, which primarily provides vacation travel services, will complement Acendas vacation/leisure business which represents about 25 percent of Acendas' business.
Edina Travel has been in business for 33 years and becomes the fourth Minnesota travel company acquired by Acendas since 2010. Bryce Baker the founder of Edina Travel will join Acendas as an independent consultant.
"The travel industry is changing at an increasing rate," Baker noted in a news release. "I felt that to best serve my customers, I needed to find a place for them with someone who has an eye to the future and is focused on innovation.
"Since we've been in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, we've admired what Bryce and his team have done at Edina Travel," said Acendas Director of Vacations Ellie Noyes in the release. "They had long been respected for their professionalism, expertise and service. It was a perfect fit culturally and strategically for us."
Acendas was founded in Kansas City in 1982 and in 2001 they formed a joint venture with BCD Travel, the third largest purchaser of corporate travel in the United States. In 2010 Acendas acquired Twin Cities-based Vanguard Travel, and added local acencies Gateway Express Travel and Interlachen Travel in 2012 and 2013.
Terms of the current transaction were not disclosed.
