diff --git a/plugins/rest/pom.xml b/plugins/rest/pom.xml
index 06fa959ed..d3dfc1d32 100644
--- a/plugins/rest/pom.xml
+++ b/plugins/rest/pom.xml
@@ -55,6 +55,11 @@
             <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
             <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
         </dependency>
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId>
+            <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-xml</artifactId>
+            <optional>true</optional>
+        </dependency>
 
         <dependency>
             <groupId>mockobjects</groupId>
@@ -80,6 +85,12 @@
             <optional>true</optional>
         </dependency>
 
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>org.easytesting</groupId>
+            <artifactId>fest-assert</artifactId>
+            <scope>test</scope>
+        </dependency>
+
         <!-- The Servlet API mocks in Spring Framework 4.x only supports Servlet 3.0 and higher.
            This is only necessary in tests-->
         <dependency>
diff --git a/plugins/rest/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/rest/handler/JacksonXmlHandler.java b/plugins/rest/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/rest/handler/JacksonXmlHandler.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..66d5c2a37
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/rest/src/main/java/org/apache/struts2/rest/handler/JacksonXmlHandler.java
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ * specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ * under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.struts2.rest.handler;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectReader;
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.xml.XmlMapper;
+import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionInvocation;
+import org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager;
+import org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.Reader;
+import java.io.Writer;
+
+/**
+ * Handles XML content using Jackson
+ */
+public class JacksonXmlHandler extends AbstractContentTypeHandler {
+
+    private static final Logger LOG = LogManager.getLogger(JacksonXmlHandler.class);
+
+    private static final String DEFAULT_CONTENT_TYPE = "application/xml";
+    private XmlMapper mapper = new XmlMapper();
+
+    public void toObject(ActionInvocation invocation, Reader in, Object target) throws IOException {
+        LOG.debug("Converting input into an object of: {}", target.getClass().getName());
+        ObjectReader or = mapper.readerForUpdating(target);
+        or.readValue(in);
+    }
+
+    public String fromObject(ActionInvocation invocation, Object obj, String resultCode, Writer stream) throws IOException {
+        LOG.debug("Converting an object of {} into string", obj.getClass().getName());
+        mapper.writeValue(stream, obj);
+        return null;
+    }
+
+    public String getContentType() {
+        return DEFAULT_CONTENT_TYPE;
+    }
+
+    public String getExtension() {
+        return "xml";
+    }
+
+}