PTS aims to increase technology spend by £300k a year

Protected Trust Services (PTS) is aiming to spend an additional £300,000 a year on technology amid plans to accelerate its bid to create a central booking platform.

Chief executive Daniel Landen said the group would be growing its technology team, recruiting “more quality people”, while looking to form an advisory board comprising travel agencies, tour operators and suppliers.

“Technology is probably the biggest thing we’re going for over the next three years,” he said, adding: “I’m probably going to increase our spend on that by about £300,000 a year.”

He said the creation of a central booking system has been a long-standing ambition.

“That’s always been the goal, but we haven’t achieved it yet,” he said. “We’ve probably spent the last 18 months building the foundations underneath the platform and making sure everything within the system actually works to allow us to take the next stage.”

He added: “I think what we need to do is form an advisory board, with travel agents, tour operators and suppliers.

“It needs to stop being us developing technology and instead we need to be guided by you on what needs developed.

“And that’s the bit we’ve probably missed out on. Like most tech companies, we’ve been a bit arrogant and we haven’t really done enough of that. That’s what’s stood out for us in the last 12 months – we’ve made a mistake.”

Landen was speaking during PTS’s second annual conference, held at The Belfry in Sutton Coldfield.