1 THE BACKGROUND

With more than 3,500 employees, over a hundred bingo clubs and an online bingo platform, Buzz Bingo (formerly Gala Bingo) was in need of a business travel solution to support its workers across the country.

Its previous travel management company did not have a platform for mobile bookings, something that the organisation believed was key to driving online adoption and securing savings.

Previously, a lot of time had been spent on phone calls to organise employees’ travel needs.

2 THE ACTION

Buzz Bingo wanted its employees to be able to book travel independently, without the need to ring a call centre. They also wanted to see significant savings through direction connections to a wide variety of suppliers.

Their biggest travel expense was on hotel accommodation for their employees and they wanted to have continual access to a wide variety of suppliers and competitive rates.

Click Travel won a competitive tender, with its user-friendly online booking system and company culture helping clinch the contract earlier this year, says Buzz Bingo’s Procurement Officer, James Mulholland.

3 THE PROCESS

Getting up and running was a quick and painless process for the company. “The implementation process went incredibly well,” says Mulholland.

“Communication was very good throughout the process and any snags were sorted out very quickly. Everything seemed to go without a hitch and the process was delivered on time. There was nothing we could have improved on,” he adds.

Click’s proprietary booking tool gives Buzz Bingo’s employees instant access to competitive rates for hotel, rail and, if required, air reservations, all within its own travel policy. The system also incorporates expense claims and employee tracking and individual spend analysis.

4 THE RESULT

“While we are relatively early on in our working relationship with Click Travel, we have already seen our online adoption rate for online bookings increase from an average of 15% to over 98% in just a few months,” says Mulholland.

“This is a staggering increase and an amazing achievement.” One booker at the company said it has “revolutionised the way we book business travel.”

Meanwhile, hotel policy compliance has reached 95% and Buzz Bingo is on track to achieve an estimated £56,000 in savings on accommodation spend in the first year if it follows recommendations from its account manager at Click Travel.

(First published in the Dec/Jan 2019/20 issue of The Business Travel Magazine)