CIC Research was awarded the contract after an open competitive bidding process from which there were several vendor proposals submitted. The request for proposals from potential vendors sought by the…
CIC Research was awarded the contract after an open competitive bidding process from which there were several vendor proposals submitted. The request for proposals from potential vendors sought by the Office of Travel & Tourism Industries (OTTI) had no restrictions on the methodologies used and encouraged new innovative solutions for improving the program.
In addition to running the ‘base’ program, i.e., Survey administration and the I-94 Arrival Record processing, CIC and OTTI are planning to enhance the overall program in order to add value to stakeholders and users.
According to OTTI, built into the new contract are over ten options, which, subject to funding, will improve the base program, such as:
- Revise/redesign the Survey questionnaire to reflect changes in the marketplace.
- Develop and implement a series of education and training workshops for both public (other federal agencies) and private (participating airlines, airports and destination marketing organizations) partners.
- Accommodate changes should the I-94 become an electronic Arrival record system (by the Department of Homeland Security), which will speed up analysis, reporting, data quality and weighting of survey sample data.
- Outreach to current and other industry groups, which stand to realize potential benefits from using the Survey results.
- Expand market coverage and response rates to ensure that survey results are more representative of international travel patterns between the U.S. and all world regions, allowing for more market profiles.
- Improve data access of OTTI statistical system databases and introduction of interactive analytical tools.
- The ability to report survey data on a most recent four quarters (moving annual) basis.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is also seeking to develop a public/private partnership to help finance a more robust survey sample, revise and implement a new questionnaire, and enable OTTI to implement the improvement options.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
