Deadline: 5-Nov-21
Within the Future Tourism Program, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is looking for companies and other entities with technological experience in the tourism sector to develop diagnoses on the technological readiness of tourist destinations in Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean and South America.
It will support the diagnosis of the use of digital technologies to face the main challenges of the sector. It will also support the implementation of technological pre-investment plans to coordinate public and private interventions in the destinations.
Objectives
The objective of this technical assistance is to apply technological assessment instruments, foster knowledge dissemination, and develop technological pre-investment plans that:
- accelerate the use of digital and emerging technologies in LAC tourist destinations; and
- stimulate coordination of the tourism ecosystem around shared plans of technological investment.
Scope of Consulting Services
- Parallel to this consultancy, the IDB is launching a call to select 10 destinations in LAC that will benefit from this technical assistance. The criteria that will be used for the selection of the beneficiary destinations include:
- Collaboration agreement between authorities and tourism companies to work toward the digitization of the destination, and eventually toward its conversion into a STD. The agreement will include the identification of geographical limits of the destination, description of competitive advantages, and current importance of tourism in the local economy compared to other economic activities (to show the relevance of the sector in the destination).
- Designation of a public-private task force to accompany this technical assistance and execute the investment plan afterwards.
- Preparation of a technical proposal on the main needs/challenges of the destination and benefits sought with the STD framework. The mere acquisition and application of technologies does not make a destination smart, so it is essential that the technical proposal identifies the theory of change that is intended to be achieved with greater technological development. This is about revolutionizing the management of the destination in accordance with new technological possibilities and the capacity for local action.
- This technical assistance will be implemented for a minimum of three and a maximum of four destinations in the Caribbean. The destinations will be subnational and will not correspond to national or supranational tourist routes. The beneficiary destinations in the Caribbean will be announced after the closure of the call launched by the Bank.
- The selected consulting firm must carry out, in each of the beneficiary destinations (maximum of four), all the activities related to the objective of this technical assistance, grouped into two differentiated axes:
- Preparation of assessments of the level of technological readiness of the beneficiary destinations, according to specific challenges; and
- Preparation of action and preinvestment plans based on main technological gaps/opportunities identified.
Funding Information
- External consultancy under the lump sum modality. The maximum total cost of this consultancy is estimated at USD 75,000 per destination i.e., a minimum of USD 225,000 in the case of working with three destinations and USD 300,000 if working with four.
Eligibility Criteria
Minimum qualifications required on the bidder’s team:
- Project Manager with more than 8 years of experience in coordinating technological projects in the tourism sector,
- An expert in science and technology with more than 6 years of experience in technological development projects in the tourism sector;
- An expert with more than 6 years of experience in the development of digital technologies in tourism;
- An expert with more than 6 years of experience in the development of digital connectivity infrastructure;
- An expert with more than 6 years of experience in the development of emerging technologies in tourism;
- An expert with more than 6 years of experience in destination tourism planning and management;
- A sustainability expert with more than 6 years of experience in environmental assessments of tourist destinations;
- An expert with more than 6 years of experience in quantitative and qualitative market research;
- An expert with more than 6 years of experience in digital marketing and dissemination of content in digital channels;
- An economist with more than 6 years of experience in financing and evaluation of public-private projects (with a focus on cost-benefit analysis);
- A lawyer with more than 6 years of experience in regulating digital technologies in the LAC region; and
- a local expert located in each of the destinations covered by this technical assistance, with at least 6 years of experience in project management.
The team must tend, in a timely manner, to the progress of the consultancy in all destinations, at the same time, based on the schedule provided and agreed with the Bank.
For more information, visit https://www.iadb.org/en/news/idb-calls-companies-and-entities-develop-technological-diagnoses-tourism
