47QMCB23N0007_FINAL_RFI_Government-wide_TDY_Lodging_Solution 2.0_2023_04_07 .pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

RFI Number: 47QMCB23N0007

Date of Issue: April 07, 2023 RFI Title: Government-wide Temporary Duty (TDY) Lodging Solution 2.0

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information gathering and planning purposes. This RFI does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Furthermore, the General Services Administration (GSA) is not seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited quotes in response to this RFI. Respondents are advised that GSA will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in responding to this RFI. All costs associated in responding to this RFI will be borne solely by the interested parties. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quotation (RFQ), if any is issued. All submissions become GSA’s property and will not be returned.

Respondents shall not provide proprietary information.

1.0 SECTION I – INTRODUCTION

In fiscal year (FY) 2022, Federal agencies spent $9.1 billion for worldwide mission-related travel. Of this, TDY lodging spend accounted for approximately $2.3 billion, as determined through an analysis of data collected from the GSA SmartPay ® travel charge card program.

The Government-wide TDY Lodging Solution is the backbone for FedRooms® and DoD Preferred® -government-wide, government-sponsored lodging programs available to federal and DoD travelers on official business; offering hotel choices that are policy-compliant, have rates at or below per diem, meet all safety requirements, are exempt from hidden fees, and include additional negotiated amenities.

FedRooms® provides lodging for all civilian government agencies and for the Department of Defense (DoD) in markets that DoD has not implemented DoD Preferred®. FedRooms® is a competitive, corporate-style sourcing model that has been operational since 2005. For 2023, FedRooms® has over 10,000 properties in over 2,700 markets worldwide that offer negotiated rates at or below government per diem. DoD Preferred® is a competitive sourcing model that has been operational since 2015. For 2023, DoD Preferred® has 420 properties in 80 U.S. sites (program requirements include a minimum of 10% below per diem and last room availability (required for DoD Preferred, highly valued for FedRooms - in 2023, 82% of participating properties in US major markets are last room available). DoD Preferred® is for DoD travelers only and currently operates only within the United States, and will continue to expand to include, but not limited to, the San Diego, CA metro area and Colorado Springs, CO. Both programs’ benefits include 4:00 PM day of arrival cancellation, last room availability, no early check out fees, no resort fees, hotel compliance with the Americans with Disability Act, and compliance with the 1990 Hotel Motel Fire Safety Act and are Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) certified. FedRooms® rates are available through the Government’s approved distribution channels – the E-Gov Travel Service (ETS2), Defense Travel System (DTS), MyTravel and travel agencies.

DoD Preferred® rates are available in the Department of Defense on-line booking systems (DTS and MyTravel) and through the Department’s Travel Management Companies (TMCs). In FY 2022, 3.6 million room nights were sold and reported through the Government-wide TDY Lodging Solution. From that total, 2.5 million room nights were sold through FedRooms® and nearly 1.1 million room nights were sold through DoD Preferred®.

Per the Federal Travel Regulation (FTR, 41 C.F.R. § 301-11.11), FedRooms® is a non-mandatory, but first consideration source, for Federal employees. Travelers have a high level of personal choice when making lodging reservations. Therefore, the Contractor’s marketing and communications capabilities and business expansion plans will significantly influence the use of the FedRooms® lodging program. Conversely, the Department of Defense operates DoD Preferred® under 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Sec. 642, which provides DoD the authority to direct travelers to utilize specific types of lodging where travelers are fiscally responsible for paying any increased expenses. Even with this authority, the DoD focuses on a high level of quality for the program and participating hotels to ensure duty of care for DoD travelers.

GSA owns the registered trademark, “FedRooms,” which also applies to “FedRooms.com” and “FedRooms.gov.” The Government and Contractor will have exclusive rights to use the FedRooms® brand.

The Contractor is required to market the lodging program under the FedRooms brand. DoD owns the registered trademark, “DoD Preferred”. The Government and Contractor will have exclusive rights to use the DoD Preferred brand. The Contractor is required to market the lodging program under the DoD Preferred® brand.

The current Government-wide TDY Lodging Solution operates under a task order awarded against GSA legacy Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) 599 Travel Services Solutions (TSS), Special Item Number (SIN) 561599L, Lodging Negotiations and Management Services and the current task order ultimate expiration date is September 30, 2024. The task order has historically been self-funded by the Contractor and at no additional cost to the Government. The Government anticipates continuing this self-funding model.

2.0 SECTION II – PURPOSE

2.1 Purpose

The General Services Administration (GSA), Office of Travel Transportation & Logistics (TTL/QM) and the Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Travel Management Office’s (DTMO)’s primary purpose is to obtain market research information of commercial capabilities to be used to further enhance the Government-wide TDY Lodging Solution in preparation for the upcoming re-compete, a new contract solution that includes a self-funding model inclusive of dynamic refund and fee structures that may be adjusted annually through the life of the contract. The refund and fee structure has not yet been established, but will be finalized and included as part of a final Request for Proposal (RFP).

The secondary purpose is to collect information on commercial capabilities for the following areas of lodging:

Strategic Meetings, Group Room, and Long Term Lodging Management. GSA TTL/QM has not determined a path forward for these additional areas of lodging at this time and any information collected will be used solely for market research.

2.1.1. TDY Lodging Solution

Category management is an approach the Federal Government is applying to buy smarter and more like a single enterprise by increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and minimizing redundancies. Best-In-Class (BIC) is a Government-wide contracting and acquisition designati on to denote solutions that meet rigorous category management performance criteria. The current Government-wide TDY Lodging Solution has been designated a BIC solution by the Office of Management & Budget. The Government is striving to implement best practice methods to ensure cost avoidance and maximum value. Contractors are encouraged to present new concepts, processes, and/or technology that support these objectives.

GSA and DoD have determined that the continuation of the Government-wide TDY Lodging Solution serves Government lodging needs by providing:

1. Quality properties in close proximity to Government business centers and military installations at rates that are at or below per diem (a requirement of at least 10% below per diem for DoD Preferred®)

2. Last room availability or a high percentage of room availability at program negotiated rates with flexible terms for changes (a requirement of 100% last room availability for DoD Preferred®)

3. Innovation, practical ideas, and continuous program improvements that ensure commercially aligned program and customer benefits

4. The ability to source, manage, audit, and distribute negotiated program rates

5. Sustained program growth, integrity, and accountability

6. Cost avoidance from lower than per diem lodging rates, cancellation fees, resort or destination fees, early check-out fees, and any other ancillary fees that are automatically added to room rates.

7. Lodging data aggregation (rate code capture, translation, normalization), benchmarking, consultation, dashboard capabilities and reporting to highlight the benefits and value of a managed lodging program

2.1.2 Strategic Meetings and Group Room Management

Strategic meetings management is a disciplined approach to managing enterprise-wide meeting and event activities, processes, suppliers and data in order to achieve measurable business objectives that align with the organization's strategic goals/vision, and deliver value in the form of quantitative savings, risk mitigation and service quality . Group room blocks are sold simultaneously in blocks of a minimum of ten rooms or more (e.g.

government groups, group tours, domestic and international groups, association, convention and corporate groups). The Federal Government is looking for information on commercial market capabilities that could be leveraged.

2.1.3 Long Term Lodging

Long Term Lodging (LTL) is defined as lodging for individual travelers and groups for 30 nights or more. Under the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, Special Item Number (SIN) 531110 - Long Term Lodging, a solution exists providing housing accommodations for temporary or permanent relocation and extended training assignments.

Typical facilities include fully furnished apartment or condominium type properties with all the comforts of home. LTL can be paid for every 30 days using a government issued travel charge card or with a purchase order. Vendors reported approximately $20.4 million in sales for FY 2022 and approximately $19.7 million in sales for FY 2021. The Federal Government is looking for information on commercial market capabilities that could be leveraged for a consolidated solution to provide these services. The solution provider could be a vendor that has the capabilities to provide the required services across government utilizing a cross section of corporate housing vendors and commercial lodging vendors.

2.2 Information Requested

2.2.1 TDY Lodging Solution

GSA and DoD request information on the following regarding the TDY Lodging Solution:

1. Does your organization currently manage lodging programs for corporations, Federal Government, State Government, Local Government, associations or other? Yes or No? If yes, please specify.

2. How many lodging facilities, broken out by US only and international, were in the program(s) for 2021 and 2022? List each managed program/solution separately (at this time you do not need to disclose the company name). Also, please provide the Hotel Companies in the US only (e.g. Wyndham Hotel Group, Choice Hotels International, Marriott International, Inter-Continental Hotels Group, Hyatt Hotels, Hilton Worldwide, etc.) by percentage that make up each program.

3. What was the total room-spend only, in the US only, for 2021 and 2022? List each managed program or solution separately (at this time you do not need to disclose the company).

4. Were the rates predicated on the Federal Government’s allowable lodging per diem rates for 2021 and 2022? If not, what benchmarks or price-points were used to negotiate rates?

5. Does your organization utilize application program interfaces (APIs), or a similar function, to provide the online booking engines (OBEs) real-time updates on accepted hotels in the program(s)? If so, please provide a brief overview.

6. How do you measure program performance, include the data sources measures utilized, and the frequency the measures are reported.

7. Does your organization benchmark program negotiated rates against like organizations? If so, please elaborate on how your organization manages this effort with data obtained from a third party. The https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates government intends to require a third party source be utilized for benchmarking.

8. What information are you asking from hoteliers to ensure you are capturing all your customer’s negotiated rates?

9. Provide demonstrated capability for analysis of room nights and room rate trends in top travel markets on an annual basis?

10. Does your company have the capability to push and/or pull real time program utilization data for key elements such as sales and room nights? If so, how is that done and what elements are included?

11. Describe your professional working relationship with leading hotel brands and the tactics you use to ensure a wide variety of brands at various classification levels participate in lodging programs you manage.

12. Does your company have the capability to develop, operate and maintain a hotel booking site? For 1-29 nights? Currently, FedRooms® has a third party booking site it uses as an alternate lodging reservation service to Federal Civilian travelers per agency policy.

13. What are the costs to operate your lodging program model? Can you quantify on a monthly or annual basis?

14. What is the customary length of the base period of performance of your contracts with corporations, Federal Government, State Government, Local Government, associations or other? What would be your company’s preference for a base period of performance? 1, 2 or 3 years?

15. Do you capture sustainability information and if so, what do you capture?

16. Please provide a blank copy of your typical commercial contract when providing a managed lodging service solution to any client so that the Government may understand typical selling terms and conditions of the services provided.

2.2.2 Strategic Meeting and Group Room Management

Strategic meeting management (SMM) is the management of enterprise-wide meeting and event processes to achieve measurable business objectives aligned with the organization’s strategic goals. Group Rooms can be defined as reservations for 10 or more hotel rooms. GSA has not determined a path forward for Strategic Meeting and Group Room Management. If the government were to go down this path, we’d look for an end-to-end SMM and Group Room Management services and would intend for it to be a fully managed service, at no cost, on behalf of the Federal Government. Please provide examples of companies you’ve worked with to provide such a service and identify the services provided (e.g. conference planning tool (planning), requesting quotes, fulfillment, reporting). Please also provide a sample contract for these services to help with the Government’s understanding on how these services are sold to the general public. The Federal Government is seeking information on commercial market capabilities that could be leveraged.

2.2.3 Long Term Lodging (LTL) Management

Long Term Lodging is a solution designed to provide furnished accommodations to federal travelers for 30 nights or more through the use of pre-vetted vendors on the GSA Multiple Award Schedule and through an existing Multiple Award Schedule Blanket Purchase Agreement. The program is striving to modernize its approach in how accommodations are booked and paid for by pursuing a reservation aggregation tool that would allow federal travelers and their agencies to purchase LTL services through an online booking engine environment while maintaining compliance with all applicable federal travel regulations.

GSA requests the following information on a long term lodging reservation aggregation tool:

1. Describe the core strength of your technology platform in aggregating multiple vendors' long term lodging supply content in order to provide a federal buyer options to meet their lodging requirements and do so with unbiased results.

2. Describe the booking process via your technology platform.

● How do users book through the platform?

● How is the booking information captured start to finish?

3. Has your technology integrated with SAP Concur and/or CWTSatoTravel - the two current Federal Government E-Gov Travel Services (ETS2) supporting the Federal Civilian government agencies? For more information on GSA’s ETS2 program https://www.gsa.gov/travel/agency-services/egov-travel-services-ets/egov-travel-service-2-ets2

4. Describe your company’s implementation process for the technology.

5. How configurable is your technology? Please describe in detail any limitations to custom work.

6. What mobile platforms are supported and how are they supported (e.g. web interfaces (which ones), apps (which platforms and store fronts, yours or 3rd party)? What is done to maintain mobile security?

7. Can you provide an example of a cost savings initiative you recommended to a client and which was implemented? What was the approximate cost savings?

8. What are your data reporting capabilities and what data elements are captured in the platform? The current data categories for GSA’s long term lodging providers are as follows: Type of Service; Federal Government Agency; Number of Transactions (listed by type of service ordered); Dollar Value of Transactions (listed by type of service ordered); Average Length of Stay; and Average Unit Price Per Night.

9. What standard reports would be available to GSA as the program manager, federal agency customers as the buyer, and the long term lodging vendors as the suppliers?

10. Will form of payment be consistent across mobile (if available) and desktop platforms?

11. Does the system/service collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and/or other sensitive information (e.g., personal contact information; Social Security Number (SSN); credit card number;

unique identifiers; etc.)?

12. What safeguards are in place to protect the collection, processing, storage, and transmission of the system/service data?

13. Do you capture sustainability information and if so, what do you capture?

3.0 SECTION III – CONTACT AND RESPONSE INFORMATION

3.1 Point of Contact (POC)

The Contracting Officer (CO) is the Point of Contact (POC) for this RFI. Please submit responses to the CO by the deadline specified in the RFI Schedule below. Please reference the RFI Number and Title. All responses to the RFI must be submitted directly to the CO by email at:

Earl “Ryan” Oberholtzer Contract Specialist Email Address: earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov and onthego@gsa.gov Email Subject: RFI Number 47QMCB23N0007, Government-wide Temporary Duty (TDY) Lodging Solution 2.0

3.2 RFI Schedule

This RFI is the first step in the procurement process.

https://www.gsa.gov/travel/agency-services/egov-travel-services-ets/egov-travel-service-2-ets2

EVENT DATE

RFI Issue Date April 7, 2023 Deadline for Submission of Questions and Requests for Clarification by 4:30 PM Eastern Time

April 14, 2023

Amendment with Responses to Questions and Requests for Clarification issued approximately (if required)

TBD

Deadline for Submission of Responses by 4:30 PM Eastern Time April 21, 2023

3.3 Questions and Requests for Clarifications

Please submit any questions or requests for clarifications about this RFI by filling out the Government-wide TDY Lodging 2.0 RFI Response Template spreadsheet by close of business on April 14, 2023. Any questions or requests for clarifications will only be accepted by email to earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov , russell.walter@gsa.gov , and onthego@gsa.gov . All responses to questions or requests for clarification will be submitted by the CO as a written amendment to the RFI. GSA and DoD reserve the right to follow-up with any vendor that submits a response to this RFI, but GSA and DoD are not obligated to respond to all vendors that submit a RFI response.

3.4 Submission instructions

Responses are requested in electronic format no later than April 21, 2023, 4:30 pm Eastern Standard Time to earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov , russell.walter@gsa.gov , and a copy to onthego@gsa.gov . Address only those areas and questions which are appropriate based on your capabilities and knowledge. We request the information response be organized in the following manner:

1. Volume I - RFI White Paper Response: Respond to the information requested via a white paper narrative.

Volume I should include:

a. Cover/Title Page

b. Cover Letter - If desired, an executive summary of the response should be ~1 page in length and may be included with the cover letter.

c. Corporate Information including:

i. Name of company and point of contact (POC).

ii. Telephone number, mailing address, and e-mail address of POC.

iii. All applicable classifications for your organization, such as: Small Business, Woman owned business, 8(a) business, Large Business (Other than Small), Small Disadvantaged Business, HUBZone business, SDVOB business, etc.

iv. Type of company under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), as validated via the System for Award Management on SAM.gov. Additional information on NAICS codes can be found at www.sba.gov. Note: Any potential GSA contractor/vendor must be registered on the System for Award Management on SAM.gov.

v. Existing contract vehicles that would be available to procure the required services, such as Multiple Award Schedules or Governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWAC), if appropriate.

d. Table of Contents with page numbers.

e. Responses to RFI Questions from section 2.

2. Volume II - Price Estimate: Provide an Excel Spreadsheet to quantify the rough costs to operate your lodging program on a monthly and annual basis.

3.5 Notice Provided

This RFI and any related amendment and notices will be posted on SAM.gov at https://www.sam.gov . Vendors may request to receive notices related to this RFI by contacting the CO in writing with the following information:

mailto:earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov mailto:russell.walter@gsa.gov mailto:onthego@gsa.gov mailto:earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov mailto:russell.walter@gsa.gov mailto:onthego@gsa.gov https://www.sam.gov/

RFI title, business name, contact person, mailing address, telephone number, fax number, and email address.

4.0 SECTION IV – INDUSTRY OUTREACH

4.1 One-on-one Sessions

Virtual, one on one sessions may be conducted with interested, qualified vendors. To request a one on one session, please provide the following information about your representative(s) as part of your response.

● Name

● Title

● Company Name

● Telephone Number

● Email Address

Sessions may last up to two (2) hours and are intended for the Government to obtain additional market research information from firms on available commercial offerings of services. The Government will use a collaborative virtual space for the meeting.

Please RSVP with the above information to earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov , by close of business on April 21, 2023. Please also CC russell.walter@gsa.gov and onthego@gsa.gov .

- End of RFI -mailto:earl.oberholtzer@gsa.gov mailto:russell.walter@gsa.gov mailto:onthego@gsa.gov