BRCD Contracts for Innovation Challenge 1
Description: The tender opportunity will be published on Simply Do platform under the challenge titled: Predicting Demand. Managing Tomorrows Visitors, Today "How can local authorities anticipate and manage visitor demand and movement across key destinations, while understanding the factors driving these changes, so they can proactively mitigate potential impacts before they become a problem." This challenge is focused on transforming how local authorities manage visitor destinations. Using Castlewellan Forest Park as a real-world test environment, the initiative addresses the growing pressures that large rural tourism destinations face from fluctuating visitor demand, which impacts local roads, parking, waste services, biodiversity, and infrastructure. Historically, council management has relied on static measures and reactive interventions, such as annual visitor numbers or seasonal passes, which fail to provide real-time insights or predictive intelligence. (read more...)
Summary: Newry Mourne & Down District Council plans a Contracts for Innovation challenge to develop a way for local authorities to predict and manage visitor demand and movement at tourism destinations. Castlewellan Forest Park will be the real-world test environment. The work is intended to help councils understand what drives changes in visitor numbers and respond before pressure affects local roads, parking, waste services, biodiversity or infrastructure. The aim is to replace fragmented, reactive management based on static measures with connected, evidence-led predictive decision-making. The procurement covers a solution involving technology and research and development, including networks, sensors, software and IT services. Delivery is across six areas in Northern Ireland, including the council district; Castlewellan Forest Park is the named test site.