Planning

ID 5827949 - DFE – Tourism NI – Managed Business Support Services – Preliminary Market Engagement

  • Tourism Northern Ireland

UK2: Preliminary market engagement notice - Procurement Act 2023 - view information about notice types

Notice identifier: 2025/S 000-008414

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-04eab7

Published 7 March 2025, 4:13pm



Scope

Reference

ID 5827949

Description

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board trading as Tourism Northern Ireland (TNI) ("the Client") wishes to appoint a Supplier to provide a Managed Business Support Service to the Tourism Industry.

The Tourism Action Plan launched in January 25 outlines a strategic goal of growing the value of tourism to £2b per annum by 2035 supporting strategic growth of tourism over the next 10 years.

The procurement of a Managed Business Support Provider will enable Tourism NI to adopt a flexible mechanism to deliver a wide range of tailored tourism business support and learning to the NI tourism sector.

Support may include 1-1 mentoring, group mentoring, learning and development programmes, and also include content creation for online learning courses delivered via ' an eLearning platform, with the aim of creating end-to-end business support on behalf of Tourism NI (TNI) in a number of bespoke, strategic areas.

The Managed Service will include facility for local authorities and government departments to draw down on procurement terms.

Tourism NI has successfully used a similar Framework to deliver a wide range of tailored tourism specific support, mentoring and expertise to tourism businesses since 2019 . The recipients of such support, engaged through hundreds of specific projects, has included private sector tourism SMEs, local government organisations, third sector and sectoral representative bodies, with access to 190 or so mentors / experts.

The framework has been considered to have been successful across key user groups such as Tourism NI, stakeholders and individual tourism businesses.

The Managed Service Framework therefore has been an instrumental tool in supporting Tourism NI rapidly adapt to the changing needs of the tourism industry.

Delivery ranges from 1-1 to 1-many mentoring programmes both in person and online delivery, focusing on key areas such as Sustainability, Innovation, Digitisation, Marketing and other areas.

-The mentoring programmes may include business audits, the development of action plans, sector specific learning and content development.

Total value (estimated)

  • £4,000,000 excluding VAT
  • £4,800,000 including VAT

Above the relevant threshold

Contract dates (estimated)

  • 22 July 2025 to 22 July 2028
  • Possible extension to 22 July 2030
  • 5 years, 1 day

Main procurement category

Services

CPV classifications

  • 79411000 - General management consultancy services
  • 79411100 - Business development consultancy services
  • 73220000 - Development consultancy services
  • 80500000 - Training services
  • 80000000 - Education and training services
  • 80510000 - Specialist training services
  • 80521000 - Training programme services
  • 79410000 - Business and management consultancy services

Contract locations

  • UKN - Northern Ireland

Engagement

Engagement deadline

4 April 2025

Engagement process description

Tourism Northern Ireland will be hosting Market Engagement Days at their offices in Belfast (Wednesday 2nd April am) and via Microsoft Teams (Thursday 3rd April pm) for suppliers interested in finding out more.

The procurement process will be managed by Northern Ireland's Construction Procurement Delivery (CPD). Agencies interested in attending the Market Engagement Days are asked to email ssdadmin.cpd@finance-ni.gov.uk by 5pm on Friday 28th March 2025 @ 5pm.

Please note that appointments will be scheduled on a first come basis and will last a maximum of 45 minutes. A maximum of 3 people per supplier should attend


Participation

Particular suitability

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)


Submission

Publication date of tender notice (estimated)

15 April 2025


Contracting authority

Tourism Northern Ireland

  • Public Procurement Organisation Number: PPMV-2979-BDPH

Floors 10-12 Linum Chambers

Belfast

BT2 7ES

United Kingdom

Region: UKN06 - Belfast

Organisation type: Public authority - central government

Devolved regulations that apply: Northern Ireland


Other organisation

These organisations are carrying out the procurement, or part of it, on behalf of the contracting authorities.

Construction and Procurement Delivery

Summary of their role in this procurement: Construction and Procurement Delivery - Supplies and Services Division, is a Centre of Procurement Expertise and provides a central procurement function for central government in Northern Ireland.

  • Public Procurement Organisation Number: PVWG-8426-YWXV

303 Airport Road West

Belfast

BT3 9ED

United Kingdom

Region: UKN06 - Belfast


Contact organisation

Contact Construction and Procurement Delivery for any enquiries.