SPECIAL STUDIES AND ANALYSIS
Date of Issue: November 20, 2019
Saint John Destination Marketing Inc. (Discover Saint John) is inviting qualified individuals or firms to submit proposals to create a Tourism Industry Annual Performance Report for Saint John, New Brunswick.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE: DISCOVER SAINT JOHN
We are the award-winning Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) for Greater Saint John. We are dedicated to putting our region on the map and establishing Saint John as the best place to spend your leisure time or host your next meeting or major event.
Our Vision: Be the must-experience destination in Atlantic Canada.
Our Mission: Increase tourism revenue to drive economic vitality and enhance quality of life.
Organizational Personality: We Make Awesome Happen
Areas of Focus:
1. Destination Marketing - selling the unique assets of the destination to strategic target markets
-Build awareness for the brand through advertising, owned and earned media.
-Move prospective visitors along the path-to-purchase from awareness to intent and conversion.
-Increase the visitor's average length of stay, spend and probability for a repeat visit
2. Sales - attending tradeshows and hosting clients in-market with the goal of winning Meeting and Convention, Sports and Major events business, Travel Trade and Cruise.
3. Member Services - Promoting and selling our members and advocating for sector growth (over 500 member businesses).
4. Visitor Experience - serving clients needs who are planning a trip or who are already here.
Discover Saint John reports to a Board of Directors comprised of the Saint John Hotel Association appointees, City of Saint John appointees and Industry members voted in by their peers.
Saint John receives approximately 1.7M visitors a year and the industry generates over $282M annually.
BACKGROUND AND CHALLENGES
From 2008 to 2016, a New Brunswick tourism consultant worked with Statistics Canada travel survey data, provincial tourism indicators, STR accommodation occupancy and daily rate reports, and available primary indicators to produce estimates of tourism visits and visitor spending in cities. These included brief analyses of trends over time and comparisons of trends across a competitive set of cities for context. These reports helped to improve awareness of tourism economic impacts for Discover
Saint John's partners, members, and local media.
This service is no longer available. Statistics Canada travel surveys were more appropriate for national or interprovincial levels of analysis, and in recent years, methodology and available data have wholly changed. Provincial tourism indicators and STR reports remain available, but these are mostly limited to the accommodation sector. Discover Saint John and its partners exploring ways to expand its primary data sources and technology for data collection.
PURPOSE OF THE RFP
The purpose and intent of this Request for Proposals is to enter an agreement for a one-year contract with two optional one-year renewal periods with qualified individuals or firms to produce a Tourism Industry Annual Performance Report for Saint John, New Brunswick.
REQUIREMENTS
Proponents selected must:
- be a qualified individual or firm experienced in tourism sector analytics
- demonstrate an understanding of tourism sector economics - visits by trip reason (including meetings, conventions, sports, cruise), proportions of visitor spending by category (accommodations, food and beverage, attractions), and employment and economic impacts by industry
- demonstrate knowledge of and/or experience with Statistics Canada tourism data, New Brunswick provincial tourism indicators, accommodation occupancy statistics (from provincial data, STR, CBRE, or other sources), and cruise industry data among other relevant data sources
- demonstrate knowledge of tourism sector economic impact analysis
Successful Proponents may be provided the option to contract with other New Brunswick municipalities for the same data compilation, analysis, and report.
SCOPE OF SERVICES
Discover Saint John will provide:
- Prior reports
- References to tourism sector economic impact measurement and reporting by Discover Saint John partners, including the New Brunswick Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture
- References to relevant tourism indicators available at a provincial and regional level
- Aggregate Saint John region accommodation room nights available and sold, by month and by visitor origin, along with average daily room rates, compiled from available data sources, in Excel format
- Available tourism indicators from Discover Saint John partners including:
o Cruise visits
o Visitor information centre counsels
o Delegates, room nights, and available economic impact data from attributable Discover Saint John meetings, conventions, and sport tourism events
The Successful Proponent will be required to:
- Review prior reports and available data
- Scan for current best practices in city destination management organization tourism analytics and reporting
- Develop a framework to estimate Saint John regional tourism estimates from available primary and secondary data
o This should include visits with friends and relatives, and sharing economy accommodation stays
- Provide data and visualizations including:
o Primary Discover Saint John and partner activity, events, and impacts (delegates, room nights, visitor spending estimates)
o Estimates of:
# Visits (total, day, 1+nights) by origin
# Accommodation room night sales by origin
# Visitor spending (total, day, 1+nights) by origin
# Cruise visits and visitor spending
# Distribution of visitor spending by industry (accommodations, food and beverage, transportation, fuel, retail)
- Develop a method to trend or bridge to prior reports, indicating relative +/- % changes from the prior reports to the current estimates
- Provide data and visualizations including:
o Continuous series of estimates of visits, accommodation room nights, visitor spending by origin and industry (with adjustments for consumer and travel price indices / inflation)
- Provide contextual analysis:
o Performance in a competitive perspective
o Performance in a historical perspective
o Key Performance Indicators for 2019 onward
SUPPORT FROM DISCOVER SAINT JOHN ADMINISTRATION
The Director of Marketing and Communications at Discover Saint John will act as sponsor of the Tourism Industry Annual Performance Report for Saint John, New Brunswick.
CONTENT
Responses must conform to the requirements for this RFP. Discover Saint John reserves the right to waive any irregularity in any proposal or to reject any proposal for any reasons. Discover Saint John also reserves the right to reject all proposals and reissue the RFP. Discover Saint John, on criteria determined by the corporation, will make selection of the proposing firms. The use of the term "firm" throughout this document means: Individual Proprietor, Partnership, Limited Liability
Company, Corporation or Joint Venture.
Proposals are expected to include the following:
1. Detail your firm's experience in data analytics. Please identify core strengths.
2. Detail your firm's experience in the tourism sector.
3. Examples of similar projects (can be outside the tourism sector) with references.
4. Proposed data sources to complete the required report.
5. Budget.
CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS
The successful proposing individual(s) or firm(s) will be required to enter into an agreement; which may include the requirements of this RFP as well as other requirements to be negotiated. By submitting a proposal, the proposing individual(s) or firm(s) agrees to all of the terms in this RFP. It is anticipated contract durations will be for a one (1) year term plus two optional one-year extensions.
Discover Saint John will also reserve the right to cancel contracts at their discretion at any time for issues of quality or performance.
OPTIONAL BIDDERS REGISTRATION
An optional Bidders registration will be available for those interested wishing to receive information updates during the open period of the RFP. This is an option only to prospective consulting teams and is not a requirement. Bidders lists will not be disclosed until after the final closure date for the bid process. Bidders can register by submitting an email to info@discoversaintjohn.com stating your interest and return email address for communications.
PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
Interested and qualified firms must deliver three (3) copies of their proposal along with an electronic version to the Discover Saint John office by December 13, 2019 no later than 4:30pm. All late or incomplete submittals may be rejected. No verbal submittals will be accepted.
Courier Address:
Discover Saint John
11th Floor, City Hall
15 Market Square
Saint John, NB
E2L 1E8
Mailing Address:
Discover Saint John
PO Box 1971
Saint John, NB
E2L 1E8
All submissions will become the property of Discover Saint John.
QUESTIONS
All questions must be directed to info@discoversaintjohn.com. The questions and responses will be circulated to all registered bidders. No phone contacts for questions.
Should sufficient questions be presented, the corporation may at its own option provide an information meeting for registered bidders.
This is a tender notice only. In order to submit a bid, you must obtain official tender documents from the New Brunswick Opportunities Network, another authorized tendering service or as indicated in the tender notice.
