Request for Proposals: North East England Food and Drink Visitor Experience Development

The programme will support individual businesses and business collaborations to develop, enhance, test and bring to market distinctive food and drink visitor experiences that reflect the people, produce, landscapes, heritage and food culture of North East England.

We are looking for a practical, hands-on programme that helps participating businesses move from ideas and existing assets to high-quality visitor experiences with clear target audiences, viable commercial models and appropriate routes to market. Wherever suitable, experiences should be capable of being booked online and promoted through regional destination channels, the travel trade and relevant third-party platforms.

Proposal Requirements

At a minimum, proposals should include the following:

• Overview of your organisation
• Relevant experience / case studies of previous and relevant work carried out in the last 5 years
• Details of the project team
• Your understanding of the brief, regional context and opportunity
• Your proposed programme model and delivery approach
• The scale of programme you propose to deliver
• How your approach will achieve appropriate regional reach
• Your approach to partnership working
• Your approach to monitoring, evaluation and evidence collection
• Project timeline and key milestones
• Project management and communication arrangements.
• Detailed pricing and breakdown of costs
• Details of any optional or additional activity
• Key risks, dependencies and mitigation measures
• Two references from comparable clients

Supplier Requirements

Suppliers should provide the following with their quotation:

• Full legal and trading name, legal status, registered address, company registration number and VAT number, where applicable.
• Details of any consortium members or subcontractors involved in delivery.
• Current insurance certificates confirming a minimum of £5 million Employers’ Liability, where legally required, £2 million Public Liability and £1 million Professional Indemnity cover.
• Details of any actual or potential conflicts of interest relevant to this commission and how these would be managed.

Experience North East England reserves the right to undertake further proportionate due diligence before awarding the contract, including where appropriate or necessary, requesting the suppliers latest available evidence of financial standing.

Submission deadline – Friday 18th September 2026

Please make sure you read the brief at the link below in full. 

• Submissions can only be accepted electronically via the portal. In exceptional circumstances, we may accept submissions via email; however, this will only be agreed on a case-by-case basis.
• We will not accept any submission material via post; this includes any additional portfolio examples, brochures or promotional material.
• Submissions sent to any other email address or Experience North East England team member will not be accepted.

Clarification Responses

Clarifications and questions should be submitted to opportunities@experiencenee.co.uk by Thursday 3rd September 2026

Responses will be shared to all bidders by COP Friday 4th September 2026.

Please do not contact or approach individual Experience North East England team members, partner organisations or members of the evaluation panel regarding this procurement, even if you have a prior relationship with them.

Experience North East England may seek clarification of any aspect of a submission during the evaluation process but reserves the right to evaluate proposals based solely on the information provided.