Long Term Agreement for Travel Management Services

ARK Group DMCC (ARK) is seeking proposals to establish a Long Term Agreement (LTA) with a qualified Travel Agent for its business travel requirements. ARK is registered in the UAE with its head office in Dubai, and branch offices in Beirut, Amman and London. Travel services are required across all our regions of operation which include the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Americas.

ARK is a stabilisation and development company committed to empowering local communities and beneficiaries in conflict, post-conflict, and fragile areas through the provision of evidence-based programmatic interventions, policy recommendations, research, and capacity-building. Working with local communities, it seeks to understand and then mitigate the negative effects of conflict and instability, enhancing social cohesion and resilience whist promoting human security, development, and economic opportunity.

Requirement

ARK's travel management service is provided by a travel agency based in Dubai with the current agreement ending in May 2024. The travel booking platform is powered by Neo, which is customised to ARK's travel policy and procedures including internal approvals which enables transparency on travel cost and journey choice. Each trip booked on the online travel booking tool is recorded with an audit log showing the itinerary, budget code, trip objective, approvals, and total cost. The travel agency also provides dedicated support for offline bookings (specifically for ticket changes, cancellations, and complex itinerary bookings, Fly America Act flight bookings and group bookings), and a 24/7 out of office contact centre for emergency bookings.

This ITB is for the re-tender of the above-mentioned travel management services. Travel Management Services shall include, but are not limited to: a custom-built online travel booking tool, airline ticketing, short-term accommodation in hotels and/or apartment hotels, hire of conference facilities, train ticketing, car and coach hire and advice on visa requirements and/or facilitation of visa applications. The ITB may result in one or more travel agents being awarded an LTA. Detailed requirements are provided in Annex 1 Terms of Reference.

Instructions for Submitting Proposals

The ITB consists of this letter of invitation with submission instructions and evaluation criteria, and the following annexes:

Annex 1: Terms of Reference (TOR) for Travel Management Services Annex 2: Proposal Declaration Form Annex 3: Technical Proposal Form Annex 4: Price Proposal Form

Detailed requirements are provided in the attached documents (Annexes).