Travel management RFP and ITT template

Ten sections and 58 questions, written so that what comes back is comparable rather than eloquent. It is free, there is no form in front of it, and it is a Word file you can put your own name on.

Most tender documents in this market ask about service levels and price, and discover the rest afterwards. The four sections below are the ones that are usually missing, and each traces to something published:

• Section 3, financial protection. Business travel bought under a general business travel agreement is excluded from the Package Travel Regulations 2018 by reg 3(2)(c), and the supplier may be ATOL-exempt under reg 10(1)(h). So protection is a contract term. Both provisions, quoted.
• Section 6, duty of care. The duty is s.2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and it does not transfer. What that means in a tender.
• Section 9, retained supplier income and TOMS. The part of the economics that is not on your invoice, and the VAT rule that changes what a price means. Worked through here.
• Section 10, exit. Asked before signature, because that is the only moment you have any leverage over it.

How to run it

1. Fill in section 1. Spend, travellers, routes, incumbent contract end date and what has gone wrong. Suppliers price what you tell them.
2. Set the date backwards. Work back from the notice date in your current agreement, not forwards from today.
3. Issue it in this structure. Ask for responses section by section, so answers are comparable rather than eloquent.
4. Score capability before price. Sections 3 to 8 first, section 9 separately and last.
5. Keep the exit section. It decides how competitive your next tender will be.

What is in it

The sections in full

The whole document is reproduced below so it can be read, quoted and linked without downloading anything.

1. About us and this requirement

Complete this before issuing. Everything a supplier prices depends on it.

• Organisation name, registered number and the entity that would hold the contract.
• Approximate annual travel spend, and the period that figure covers.
• Number of travellers, and roughly how often they travel.
• Main routes and destinations, including anywhere that would be difficult to leave quickly.
• Current arrangements: incumbent supplier, contract end date and notice period, or state that there is none.
• What has gone wrong in the last two years. Be specific; this is the most useful part of the document and the part most often left out.
• What would make this a success in twelve months, in one sentence.
• Timetable: response date, clarification window, presentation dates, intended decision date, intended start date.

2. Your organisation

Facts we can check, rather than positioning.

• Registered company name and number of the entity that would contract with us.
• Year of incorporation and ownership structure, including any parent or group.
• Total staff, and the number in the office or team that would serve this account.
• Which of ATOL, ABTA and IATA you hold, under which legal entity, with licence, membership or accreditation numbers.
• Where your most recent filed accounts can be read.
• Any trading names used that differ from the contracting entity.

3. Financial protection of our money

Business travel bought under a general business travel agreement is excluded from the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018 by regulation 3(2)(c), and a supplier may be exempt from holding an ATOL under regulation 10(1)(h) of the Civil Aviation (ATOL) Regulations 2012. Protection is therefore a contract term and these questions establish what it is.

• Will bookings made for us under this agreement be ATOL-protected, or made in reliance on the regulation 10(1)(h) exemption? State which.
• Where would lodged funds, deposits and prepayments be held, and are they segregated from your trading funds?
• Do you issue tickets on your own IATA accreditation, or through a consolidator or host agency? Name it if so.
• What are your obligations to us on repatriation, rebooking and refund if you, or a supplier in your chain, fails?
• What insurance do you carry that is relevant to this, and at what limits?

4. Service, and who provides it

Service levels that are not in the contract are descriptions.

• Name the servicing office and its working hours.
• How many consultants would be assigned, and what is their average length of service?
• Out of hours: who answers, in which country, employed by whom, and at what charge per call or per booking? Give the number we can ring during this process.
• Response-time commitments you are willing to put in the contract, for email, telephone and out-of-hours contact.
• What happens when the assigned consultant is absent.
• Escalation route, with named roles, for when something is going wrong.

5. Technology

A native integration and a monthly export are both called an integration.

• Which GDS, and which online booking tool would we use?
• Which expense, finance or ERP systems do you integrate with natively? List them by name and state what 'natively' means in each case.
• Describe, or demonstrate, a reconciliation from booking to expense record.
• What online adoption rate do clients of our size and profile reach in year one?
• Can the booking tool refuse an out-of-policy booking, or only flag it? Who can approve an exception, and where?
• Any licence or subscription cost for the tools, stated separately from your fee.

6. Duty of care

The duty under s.2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is ours and does not transfer. These questions are about how your tooling helps us discharge it. Section 2(2)(c) of the same Act names information, instruction, training and supervision specifically.

• Demonstrate, against a test itinerary, a report of who is in a named city on a named date.
• What can and cannot be tracked — specifically, what happens to travel booked outside the agreed channel?
• What pre-trip information does a traveller receive for a higher-risk destination, and in what form?
• How are changes to FCDO travel advice handled for trips that are already booked? Who is notified, and by whom?
• What incident record is kept, and what of it survives the end of this contract?

7. Policy, reporting and data

• What standard reporting is included, at what frequency, and in what format?
• What reporting is chargeable, and at what rate?
• How is our travel policy configured in the tool, and who can change it?
• Can we access the underlying booking data directly, or only through reports?
• What data-protection terms would apply, and where would our data be processed?

8. Implementation

• Set out the implementation plan, with duration and named roles.
• State the implementation charge as a separate line, and the initial contract term it assumes.
• What do you need from us, and when, for that plan to hold?
• What happens to bookings already made with our current supplier?
• How and when are travellers told, and what training do they get?

9. Commercials

Answer for each model you are willing to offer, and give the figures in a table rather than in prose.

• Which fee model or models are you proposing: per transaction, management fee, or hybrid?
• Give the fee for an online booking, an offline booking, a change, a cancellation and a refund, in one table.
• State the fee at half our stated volume and at double it.
• Are there minimum volume or minimum fee clauses? State them.
• Which supplier income streams arising from our programme do you retain, which do you pass through, and will you disclose them to us annually? We expect the answer to be a contractual disclosure obligation rather than a statement here.
• Will supplies to us be accounted for under the Tour Operators Margin Scheme? VAT Notice 709/5 paragraph 4.19 requires a TOMS supply sold to a business to carry a reference on the invoice indicating TOMS has been applied. Provide a sample invoice for an itinerary like ours.
• Price-review mechanism, and what triggers it.

10. Exit

Ask this before signature. It is the section that decides whether the next tender is a competition or a formality.

• On the last day of the contract, what data do we receive, in what format, and within how many days?
• Does that include the full booking history for the whole term, or a summary?
• What assistance would you provide to an incoming supplier, and is it chargeable?
• What happens to lodged funds, deposits and unused credits on exit?
• Notice period, and the exact mechanism and address for serving notice.

Evaluation

Suggested structure. Set your own weightings and state them in section 1 so suppliers know how they are being read.

Responses should follow the section numbering above. Where a question does not apply, say so and say why, rather than omitting it. Clarification questions should be sent in writing by the date in section 1; answers will be circulated to all suppliers.

Common questions