STA Travel has appointed International Rail to handle its rail enquiries and transactions across the globe.

The new partnership will allow the world’s leading youth travel company to sell rail across 65 countries and transactions to be undertaken in five currencies.

The announcement comes after extensive research by STA Travel into upcoming markets and opportunities across the global marketplace.

The research took place over a year and indicated that rail travel was becoming increasingly popular to its customers and would continue to grow across the world.

“Partnering with International Rail, which offers the worlds’ largest selection of rail journeys and passes and has over twenty years’ experience in the travel industry, was the natural choice for STA Travel,” said Paul Maine, chief commercial officer, STA.

“International Rail stands out within the rail industry as they are the only company we identified which offers the spread of rail providers we were looking for.

“They have specifically built a multi-channel distribution system for us, allowing easy and convenient booking of rail online, through retail and by our agency partners across the world.”

STA Travel launches its first dedicated global rail brochure this summer.