Vendors Required for Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance’s Tourism Resilience Project

INTRODUCTION

Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance is a private sector industry association that was formed post the Easter attacks with a vision to build a resilient and strong private sector that embraces sustainable tourism best practices and is committed to driving tourism benefits to a wide cross section of stakeholders.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Since our inception in 2019 Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance has been able to establish itself as the largest all inclusive tourism member organisation and has a very active and engaged member base of over 1700+ members. With the easing of travel restrictions and markets opening up, tourism is expected to rebound significantly in 2022. Therefore Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance is looking to launch a program that aims to place destination Sri Lanka top of mind among both consumers as well as the travel trade.

The program has 02 main pillars

1. Destination Marketing and Promotions to International select visitor markets
2. Build and promote an online travel agent training program in key visitor markets

This scope of work aims to provide details around these 02 main pillars and request for proposals from interested parties that are able to handle the project in its entirety or portions of this project. (A single partner that can handle the entire process end to end is preferred).

OBJECTIVES

• Encourage return visitation post COVID shutdowns from international key markets to Sri Lanka
• Showcase and champion authentic and sustainable experiences in Sri Lanka
• Capacity build travel agents in Sri Lanka in select source markets enabling them to sell Sri Lanka better and for a higher yield.

TARGET AUDIENCE

• Overseas DMC’s and Travel Agents
• Travellers in targeted source markets

TARGET SOURCE MARKETS

• UK (London)
• USA (New York)
• India

Activity 1 – Destination Marketing and Promotions to Consumers

The consumer centric destination marketing component of this program aims to convey reliable information about Sri Lanka through a variety of virtual activities designed to keep Sri Lanka Top of mind with travellers as well as agents. Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance hopes to do this by

• Driving international visitors to our consumer centric website www.lovesrilanka.org and industry to www.srilankatourismalliance.com via regular and up to date information and inspiring rich content and marketing including a major focus on itinerary based and experiential content as well as key reopening requirements for visitors.
• Itineraries to include
  Short and long stay itineraries based on type of travel such as family, couple and / or millennial travellers as well as thematic experience based itineraries such as cultural, nature, wellness based etc.

Expected Outcomes

• Tourism Alliance is looking for a vendor that can create relevant consumer and trade focussed content to be featured on the Alliance websites, digital channels.
• The vendor will be expected to submit a proposed content calendar for a 12 month period for Alliance approval. The activities will then need to be developed and executed as per the pre agreed content calendar
• The itineraries are to be designed to also potentially highlight select Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance members who meet predetermined criteria around sustainability and innovative product offering. The chosen vendor will be expected to develop the itinerary inspiration campaign in various formats (i.e video / static) for digital consumption featuring Alliance members and propose ways to amplify the campaign digitally both in Sri Lanka and Overseas.
• The vendor will need to develop all program collateral and branding as well as all the content for the program with assistance from Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance operations team
• The vendor will also be expected to handle the digital marketing campaign around these itineraries including recommendations on suggested spend, types of marketing collateral, amplifications strategy and media plan.

Activity 2 –  Build and Market an online travel agent training program

This component of the project aims to develop and design an interactive online program specifically for industry distribution partners such as Travel agents, Inbound Tour Operators and other partners with the objective of building knowledge and expertise that enables them to sell Sri Lanka better and for a higher yield.

To this effect Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance hopes to develop a state of the art interactive online travel agent training program and is looking for an agency that can

• Building the travel agent training program and modules
• Handle content creation for the travel agent training program
• Handle the marketing and promotion of the travel agent training program

LANGUAGE – Initially the portal will be developed in English

Travel Agent Training Program Build Requirements

The proposed program will be an online learning portal that is

• Highly interactive
• Easy to Use
• Proposal of one basic module and one or two experience based module (based on budget and lead times)
• Should include the following information
  • Basic information about Sri Lanka
  • Seasonality
  • Weather
  • Languages
  • Getting here with an interactive map
  • Provincial overview
  • Iconic attractions and main highlights
  • Experiences
  • Culture
  • Food
  • Wellness
  • Colombo Highlights
• The Program must be designed in a way that allows the Alliance to expand and add modules in the future
• The program will only be available for Alliance members. They must become members of the Alliance prior to being able to access the program.
• Information about the types of people registering and completion rates for the program/modules must be captured and integrated to Alliance’s existing CRM system.
• The Alliance should be able to report accurately on the distributors completing the program and other key suggested relevant metrics.
• The program must incorporate a downloadable badge or decal that users can access once the modules are complete that they can use in the distributor’s own marketing material.
• Suggested ways to incentivise completion rates and a way for trade to then enter to participate in familiarisation trips to Sri Lanka provided by Alliance members should also be considered.

Expected Outcomes

• Build a travel agent training program that meets the criteria highlighted above
• The chosen vendor must provide details on what this program will look like including a walk through of the proposed program
• Present a plan on how the travel agent program can work together with the Alliances current asset https://www.lovesrilanka.org/ and https://www.srilankatourismalliance.com/
• The program must have a registration process that is integrated to Alliances existing CRM system

Travel Agent Training Program Content Creation

Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance is looking for a Content Creator who can curate the information listed above and present it in an engaging format to be featured on our travel agent training program

Expected outcomes

• The content should be suitable for consumption by travel trade audiences both in Sri Lanka and in key source markets.
• The content creator would need to outline the strategy and the suggested approach to create the content for Sri Lanka Tourism Alliances online travel agent training program including the recommendations on the types of content to be featured on site.
• The content creator will be fully responsible for creating the content as per Sri Lanka Tourism Alliances requirements.
• Knowledge about Sri Lanka and our tourism industry would be a key requirement.
• The writing style should be engaging and informative.

Travel Agent Training Program Marketing

Once the travel agent training program build is completed the program should be pushed to the relevant target markets listed above. Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance is looking for a vendor that can handle the entire digital marketing funnel for the portal from end to end.

Expected outcomes

• Develop brand name and logo for the program
• Develop a badge or decal that users can download online
• Create the digital strategy and media plan targeting B2B media and overseas intermediaries (this should include suggested ad spend)
• Develop advertising creatives for a digital marketing campaign
• Execute the digital marketing campaign for this project achieving pre-agreed targets

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT

The vendor will need to appoint a dedicated contact person that the Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance can liaise with on both these programs

QUALIFICATIONS AND SELECTION

The Vendor must have prior experience handling digital projects of this nature on budget and on time.
The vendor must demonstrate results obtained through similar projects that have been carried out.
Tourism experience is preferred.

DELIVERABLES

The vendor will be responsible for delivering all of the programs as per the strategy documents submitted at the start of the project.
The chosen vendor must submit detailed reach figures for each of these programs and budget breakdown (broken down by ad spend, management fees, and any other associated costs) for each of the activities (Destinations Marketing Program and Travel Agent Training Program).
The vendor must provide a monthly report with agreed KPIs and Benchmarks to Tourism Alliance to track progress against KPIs

INDICATIVE TIMING

This project will be spread out over a 24 month timeframe, with projects running parallelly during this time.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Vendors are able to submit quotes for the entire project or specific activities. All quotes must be submitted before 5.00pm on March 18, 2022. Please email the proposals to welcome@srilankatourismalliance.com
Please ensure the quote includes the following mandatory requirements.

1. Proposed approach for the 02 main activities of Destination Marketing Program & Travel Agent Training Program (Max 3 pages)
2. Budget breakdown by activity (including Ad Spend / Cost to build / Content Creation / etc) (Max 1 page)
3. Past Experience (1 Page) and relevant experience of the team members who will be handling this project.