Terms of Reference Outreach and Event Organising
Contracting Authority – SPARK
SPARK develops higher education and entrepreneurship to empower young, ambitious people to lead their fragile and conflict-affected societies into prosperity. SPARK is a dynamic and growing international not-for-profit development organisation with 100+ staff members in more than 14 offices worldwide.
We open pathways for young people, particularly women and refugees, to study, work and grow their own businesses in fragile communities. Their success brings stability where it’s needed most.
- Statement of Work:
SPARK is currently seeking service providers to assist in implementing Maharat for Tourism programme. The selected service providers will be responsible for carrying out project activities with continuous support from SPARK.
- Project Description:
The Maharat for Tourism programme, financed by Google.org, supports young people throughout Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and the Palestinian territories. The programme supports job seekers and small and medium-sized business owners to enhance their existing job skills within the travel and tourism sector, particularly through digital and soft skills training. Additionally, government policymakers are supported to create more enabling regulatory environments for productive tourism sectors in their regions.
With a particular focus on women and minorities, who currently have the lowest income and job participation in the MENA region, the programme offers a pathway to create sustainable livelihoods within the travel and tourism sector.
To achieve the mandate of the programme, the following objectives were set:
1- Digital training on tourism in the MENA region is enhanced by creating four parallel curricula as an open-source, online learning programme for Tourism in the MENA region.
- Profile/Team Composition:
The perfect candidate for this post shall:
1- Be a company or a local/international organization registered in Saudi Arabia
2- Have a presence in Saudi Arabia, specifically in Riyadh. Having presence in Jedda and Al-Ula is an advantage.
3- Have proven experience of collaboration with the tourism sector stakeholders, including governmental bodies, SMEs, universities, youth, etc.
4- Have access to youth, SMEs and other touristic entities in Saudi Arabia, preferably in Riyadh, Jedda and Al-Ula.
5- Have proven experience in organizing events in a professional manner in Saudi Arabia.
2- 50 Tourism industry stakeholders are introduced to the initiative; 300 tourism industry stakeholders across MENA are mobilised to promote the training program in key target countries.
3- Learners are supported throughout their training process to become job-ready in tourism, relative to their scope (government/SME business owners/individuals)
4- A target of 25,000 learners are engaged in two ways: In-person meetups (learning circles), and through the online platform
- Objectives for this post:
- Outreach and Awareness Campaign
- Develop and implement a comprehensive outreach campaign to effectively communicate the programme’s key messages to the target audience, primarily the tourism sector.
- Create and distribute engaging content through various social media channels and email newsletters.
- Campus events and webinars
- The service provider will plan, organise, and execute offline events designed to engage university students and tourism sector actors to promote the programme. It is important to be creative when it comes to tools and methods of engaging with the audience.
- Develop and propose innovative and highly engaging event ideas tailored to the interests and needs of the sector. This includes unique themes, interactive formats, and activities that can capture attention and foster deeper connections with the programme.
Specifically, the framework of events is:
- Event Planning and Coordination: Collaborate with university representatives and tourism sector actors to secure venues and dates, and coordinate all logistical aspects of the events.
- Promotion and Marketing: Develop promotional materials, and coordinate the logistics of handling printables and roll-ups with the SPARK team. Build strategies to attract attendees, leveraging university networks and social media platforms.
- Programme Presentation: Arrange for informative and interactive sessions that highlight the programme’s key messages, benefits, and application procedures.
- Engagement Activities: Incorporate engaging activities such as Q&A sessions, panel discussions with alumni, and hands-on workshops, booths in university public student events, to deepen student involvement and interest.
- Engage in online and offline events: participate in events held by SPARK or any of our partners when required.
- Community Management and Engagement
The service provider will establish and manage a community of acquired learners from the universities and tourism sector stakeholders providing ongoing support and engagement. This includes responding to inquiries, facilitating discussions, and maintaining an active presence within the students’ community to ensure that all members feel supported and informed about programme-related topics. Further, the service provider will monitor the community for feedback and insights, to communicate it to SPARKs team.
- Description of the Activity:
The service provider will be responsible for:
Outcome 1: Program Outreach
Programme outreach will be conducted with support of the selected service provider onboarded through the following:
- Providing an outreach and engagement plan to target the relevant stakeholders in the tourism sector (governmental entities, private sector companies, SMEs, and other organisations of interest)
- Reaching out to participants to take part in the online training, provided on the SPARK platform
- Promoting the online platform across the country with a specific focus on target cities (Riyadh, Jedda, Al-Ula), through online/on-ground events to directly communicate the programme messages, promote its unique selling points to encourage stakeholders to participate.
- Outreach and identification of the target groups for the first and second cohorts in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and other related organizations. It is worth mentioning that the number of enrolled learners per cohort increases as the programme progresses
Outcome 2: Kick-off Event
– Organizing one event in Riyadh – Saudi Arabia (Sept 2024), with representatives of the stakeholders mentioned above (approximately 50 persons), including catering, branding materials, logistics, location, etc.
– Contributing to the promotion of the event and the program
– Support the creation and communication with learning circles of the stakeholders engaged.
Outcome 3: Feedback & Reporting
– Supporting the collection of feedback from the participants of the event and platform
– Contributing to stakeholders mapping in KSA (specifically those in the program’s target cities; Riyadh, Jedda, Al-Ula)
– Providing a monthly report update on the progress of the activities
The selected vendor must adhere to the brand guidelines of programme which will be provided by SPARK.
Deliverables:
The list of deliverables is based on the activities above that will be implemented by the service provider in collaboration with SPARK, and shall be delivered during the contracting period:
a. Comprehensive Outreach Plan; a document detailing the overall strategy and the list of target stakeholders in tourism, universities, student formal and informal assemblies, and extracurricular student clusters, etc.
b. Marketing plan;
- Digital marketing and social media schedule with the related platforms/groups/online tech clusters, for the content that will be provided by SPARK.
- Collaboration with SPARK team on the content and materials as per the programme’s guidelines and approved key messages.
- Provide photographs from key events and activities, as well as collaborate with SPARK’s video creation team to produce videos.
c. Events
- Event planning and logistics document including agendas, attendance lists and promotional campaigns.
- Post-event reports summarising outcomes and feedback
d. Community Monitoring and Feedback Reports
- Weekly engagement and activity reports
- Summaries of community feedback and suggestions
e. Mid-progress narrative report and Final Narrative report including detailed information about what has been achieved, lessons learned, challenges and recommendations
- Evaluation Questions:
(selection criteria evaluation):
● Financial Offer (Budget)
- Criteria weight is 30%
- Formula: (Best Tenderer Price/Evaluated Tenderer Price) * Criterion Weight
- Price shall be quoted in USD including VAT
● Technical Expertise
- Criteria weight is 70% which will be segregated as follows:
- cities that the vendor works in (20%),
- previous experience with similar activity (outreach and organizing high-level events) (20%),
- access to stakeholders in the Saudi tourism sector (20%),
- previous experience with INGOS, government/high-level stakeholders (10%)
- An analysis will include assessing the expertise (Previous Similar Project etc), background, candidate portfolio, letter of interest,etc.
- Timeframe / Schedule:
The activities mentioned above shall take place in the period between August- November 2024.
ful Tor per the link below
How to apply
Application
Tender Package Available from:04.07.2024
Tender Package Pickup Location: Online
Deadline for Offer Submission: 18.04.2024 16:00 Saudi Arabia Time
Submit Offers to: tender@spark-online.org
The application of candidates shall include the following documents;
- The Letter of Interest (in English) must detail the following:
- Outlining brief description of the expertise/portfolio of the applying agency in the field of Tourism
- Detailing why the applicant agency is good candidate for this post based on programme design as indicated in this call.
- Detailing regions in which the organization can operate;
- Describing the applicant’s network in Saudi Arabia, especially in the targeted cities, with a focus on the tourism sector.
