Eville & Jones gain visibility into their travel programme with Roomex

Eville & Jones is committed to the safeguarding of public health and to maintaining the food supply chain through all of its essential activities while ensuring the protection of animal welfare. We ensure safety and hygiene protocols are met during food production in the UK, including the certification of meat and animal products for export, meat inspection to the UK government Food Standards Agency (FSA) and official veterinary controls to private businesses.

The company has about 750 employees and counting. Currently, 60-100 people travel each month for the business across England and Wales, even during the pandemic, given their commitment to public health.

Travel management before Roomex

Although Eville & Jones have been booking on their personalised Roomex platform for about two and a half years, we remember how difficult it was to stay organised before. Like many businesses, we used leisure sites to book most business travel. It became quite difficult because everyone was using different websites to book accommodation and making their own arrangements for travel. 

“We love Roomex because it brings our entire travel programme together. We’ve gained complete visibility and control into our travel habits while eliminating the need for our employees to have to pay out of their own pocket. All of our favourite, affordable and reliable properties are offered, making the booking process fast and easy.” - Duncan Garfield, Chief Operating Officer

Many hotels require payment at arrival, so employees were forced to pay out of pocket and then claim the cost back as expenses. This process made it difficult to gain visibility into total hotel spend and required time post-trip to sort out expenses and claims. 

Problems Eville & Jones were looking to solve

1. Get full visibility and control over all bookings, no matter who made them.
2. Pre-pay for accommodation so employees are not left out of pocket and they are not spending time claiming expenses and processing reimbursements.
3. Sourcing reliable, relevant, safe, affordable accommodation for the travelling team that spend little time in the hotel.

 How Roomex helped improve Eville & Jones’ problems 

1. Brought visibility into all bookings, and control over ones that are made by other departments.

Roomex has given the 12 office-based travel bookers control over the busy travel schedule of their team. Since Roomex is easy to use, they have also opened up bookings to some travellers, so they can make reservations on the go or extend certain stays. The booking team has full control over these reservations so they are always up to date, and nothing gets lost or double-booked.

2. Never leaving employees out of pocket while eliminating expense claims by prepaying for all bookings with Roomex

The booking team are able to make bookings on behalf of others and are billed centrally through a monthly invoice that includes all reservations. Booking on account with Roomex is a win-win, as employees are no longer paying for their accommodation and the booking team has more time since they are not focused on reimbursing them. 

3. Gained access to more relevant, affordable properties like Travelodge across the U.K. that are proximal to job sites 

But it’s not just about the control, travel management comes down to the availability, variety and relevancy of accommodation offered. This was a key focus for the team, as travel success ultimately comes down to hotel availability and supply. Eville & Jones typically look to book Travelodge properties as they offer consistent, reliable, affordable accommodation with parking. Roomex is catered to businesses that prefer accommodation like Travelodge or similar, so there are always plenty of options to consider that are close to the worksite. 

4. The team also uncovered insights in their booking data with Roomex Analytics 

Eville & Jones get access to thousands of relevant properties, control and visibility into bookings, and with Roomex Analytics, they are able to make bigger decisions based on their booking habits. They pull their own personalised reports in Roomex Analytics rather than having to create their own in Excel - focusing on their cost codes report. When any booking is made, the booker inputs the cost code so it’s easier to break down spend at the end of the month. 

Want to gain visibility into and control over your travel programme too? Reach out to our team today.