Barringtons International has launched a travel portal exclusively for organisations and employees within the public sector.
PublicSectorDirect.com will give public sector employees and procurement departments the flexibility to book travel in a convenient way with the potential for savings of up to 58%. The site can be used for both work-related and personal holiday travel.
It has been launched following a two-year consultancy project between Barringtons International and a leading London university. The university wanted to dramatically reduce travel spend, achieve travel policy compliance and reduce costs.
Key Travel is providing the operational support to the service including ticket fulfillment, customer services and emergency out-of-hours support.
The travel portal will be available to educational institutions, central and local government, army, police, ambulance and fire services as well as the NHS.
PublicSectorDirect.com is already being used by other universities and research councils.
The site has been set up by former travel boss Mark O'Brien, ex-director of Rosenbluth, Expotel and The Travel Company. He said: “PublicSectorDirect.com is the first travel company in the UK to operate exclusively for the public sector with a website registration process that only public sector workers can take advantage of.
“Our research and analysis over the last two years means we understand this market, know how to save money on negotiated contracts and this has enabled us to broaden our offer to the entire public sector – a market that has a critical need to reduce costs.
“As a whole, the public sector has a combined travel spend of £3.43 billion, but it is suffering funding cuts and is under heavy scrutiny to reduce expenditure, so this is an ideal and opportune time to be launching a dedicated service and a genuine opportunity to make a positive impact.”
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