Staffed Pop-up Visitor Information Points for the Business and Tourism Programme

Description

The Leisure Tourism programme aims to drive long-term economic benefits by boosting the West Midlands' and UK's global reputation as a world-class destination for national and international visitors. These economic benefits will be achieved by enhancing perceptions of the UK and West Midlands and strengthening the UK's relationship with other nations to ensure that visitor's experience the best possible welcome and assistance with wayfinding, booking tickets and enjoying their time in the region. We propose that Staffed Pop-Up Visitor Information Points be established at key sites and gateway locations for the duration of the Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme, from March to September 2022, including the period of the games in July and August 2022. National and international visitors expect official visitor information in-destination, owing to significant cuts to local authority budgets. There are few permanent Tourist Information Centres (TICs) remaining in the region. As we welcome visitors to the region's destinations, it is critical that our towns and cities can promote their assets, welcome, provide recommendations, and make sales. This also supports destinations and their residents' sense of involvement with the Commonwealth Games. This work package compliments our training of frontline staff but provides the official capacity to greet visitors where they need to find out information. In consultation with the host destination, we will schedule these pop-up and mobile information points at transport hubs, in empty shops on the high streets, at live events, or in a civic space. Lot 1: The Business and Tourism Programme, Tourism team is structured to manage contracts for delivery and provide key stakeholder liaison therefore, following assessment of the needs of this work package, we confirm that contracting the staffing and the Pop-Up visitor information service offers the best value and guaranteed standards of service needed for a finite timescale across Cultural Programme and games time, across a wide geography. Additional information: This contract is being awarded in line with Regulation 32 Negotiated Procedure without Prior Publication after initial Procurement Published with a Contract Notice 2021/S 000-015087 which did not yield any interest from the market. Further approval was obtained from BATP Commercial Working Group on 19/11/2021 to commence negotiated procedure Reg.32 without prior publication in trying put a contract in place. Any amendment to the headroom or variation to the contract being awarded shall be inline with principles in Reg.72 conditions (1) a, b, c, d, e, f and all relevant applicable parts in the regulation as long as the modification is not a material change or substantial so as to alter the value or change the scope of the contract awarded by making it to be materially different. The total cumulative changes shall not exceed 50% of the value of the contract awarded within the meaning of Reg.72.