Provision of Travel Agency Services for the Delegation of the European Union to the United States of America

Item Description:

The European Union, represented by the EU Delegation to the United States of America (referred to below as the contracting authority) is planning to award the contract resulting from the above procurement procedure. The procurement documents consist of the contract notice, the invitation letter, the draft contract and tender specifications with their respective annexes. All documents are available are enclosed in the attached ZIP File.

The services covered by the contract include all the services normally offered by a travel agency in connection with missions (travel of staff members outside of the place of employment, in the interest of the service and on the instruction of the line manager). The contractor must comply with the following requirements which are considered essential for the proper implementation of the contract and the required quality of service. The requirements for one type of service apply mutatis mutandis to the other types of service (airplane, hotel, train, rental car, etc.).

Throughout the period of validity of the contract, the travel agency must satisfactorily meet the needs of the contracting authority as regards to work-related travel, including the assistance service, in the following areas:

a) accessibility by telephone or e-mail, according to the choice of the person going on mission;

b) providing a professional, high-quality, proactive and customer-oriented service;

c) delivering optimum cost-efficient solutions: the most economic travel option while minimising transit/connection and stopovers, if applicable;

d) initiating and negotiating the best possible discount rates in order to provide a quotation to the contracting authority for the corresponding product at the best available market price;

e) advising travellers and taking a coordinated approach, in case several people are going on mission to the same destination;

The contracting authority has the right to verify at any time that the offered price is the cheapest available in the market by using different booking tools.

The staff of the contracting authority reserves the right to order travel services directly from the providers of the services (airline/carrier), or other sub providers, in case the contractor is unable to provide the requested service at the same price.

The contractor shall advise the contracting authority of market practices and trends that could result in further savings for them, including the use of travel booking tools with automated travel policy compliance and enforcement.

The travel agency will provide the contracting authority and persons going on mission, with any topical information (in the style of a travel alert in case of disruptions for example) that may have repercussions on the organisation of the journey, even if it has already started, in accordance with arrangements to be agreed with the contracting authority before the contract comes into force.

Download all available documents in: [ZIP]