ACTA President Wendy Paradis has responded to the negative reaction in the industry regarding their recent announcement with Virtuoso in a release early Friday morning. As TravelPulse Canada reported yesterday, many in the industry were crying foul over the exclusive retail partnership.

This is in stark contradiction to the Virtuoso announcement published early this week, with Paradis stating in today's announcement " we do not have an exclusivity agreement with any one Travel Agency, Chain, Consortia or Host Agency." There were no comments from Virtuoso included in the ACTA announcement. We have reached out to Tim Morgan and the folks at Virtuoso for comment. Watch for updates as this story develops.

Here is the full response:

"A recent press release announcing a Consortia Partnership between Virtuoso and ACTA has been met with concern from some of our members and I would like to take a moment to clarify some points of confusion. First, ACTA is proud to work with all of Canada’s key Travel Agencies, Consortia and Host Agencies and we are very pleased that Virtuoso will also now be working alongside ACTA in Canada to assist us in continuing to build a strong retail travel industry.

ACTA would like to clarify that we do not promote one travel agency organization over another and we do not have an exclusivity agreement with any one Travel Agency, Chain, Consortia or Host Agency that impedes other travel agency organizations from working with us in a similar capacity. It appears that some content in the Virtuoso press release may have been misinterpreted.

Working with our members and partners, ACTA provides important Education, Promotion and Networking opportunities to our Members to further your success.

In 2018, we did an in depth survey with you, our members and our mandate from membership is clear.

We ADVOCATE on behalf of our Travel Agency and Travel Agent members to government, travel suppliers and other key stakeholders

WE EDUCATE and elevate Travel Agents with professional certification and education tools

We CONNECT our members to valuable tools and events that will help them be more successful

AND, WE PROMOTE the tremendous value of the Travel Agent to consumers

Please know that as your trade association, the ACTA Team has and will continue to work on behalf of Members in the best interests of Travel Agencies and Travel agents across the country."