Before You Send a Tourism Video RFP: 11 Decisions That Lead to Better Work

A useful tourism video RFP defines the decision the film must influence, the audience and distribution plan, the access available, the deliverables and rights required, a real budget range, and a fair way to compare proposals. It should leave the creative solution open.

Most tourism video RFPs ask a production company to solve three problems at once: find the story, estimate an undefined scope, and promise a pile of deliverables. The brief often says plenty about the destination and very little about the decision the work needs to change.

That does not create more room for creativity. It creates padded estimates, cautious ideas, and proposals that are almost impossible to compare. A better RFP is specific about the business problem and honest about the constraints, while leaving the creative answer open.

1. Name the decision the film should influence

"Increase awareness" is not a useful production goal. Awareness of what, among whom, and in service of which next step? A film meant to introduce an overlooked region to first-time visitors is a different assignment from one meant to shift demand into November, rebuild resident pride, support a lodging campaign, or help meeting planners picture an event in town.

Write the objective as a change in audience behavior or understanding. For example: "Help road-tripping couples in Northern California see our county as a two-night fall destination, not a fuel stop." A sentence that clear gives a filmmaker something to solve.

2. Describe the audience in a travel moment

Age and household income rarely explain why someone chooses one place over another. Describe the moment instead. Are they comparing weekend trips on a Tuesday night? Already in the region and looking for tomorrow's detour? Trying to persuade a partner that a small town has enough to do? Planning around children, weather, mobility, or a specific season?

This matters because the same destination can require different stories at different points in the trip-planning process. A broad brand film can create desire. A short, specific cut can answer the hesitation that keeps someone from booking. Your RFP should say which job comes first.

3. Give the production team access to the place, not just the slogan

A destination is not a list of attractions. It is a network of people, routines, histories, landscapes, and tensions. If the selected partner will only receive a brand guide and a spreadsheet of locations, expect a handsome brochure in motion. If you want a story with a pulse, explain how the team will meet the people who know the place from the inside.

List the local relationships your organization can realistically open: tribal and cultural representatives, historians, business owners, land managers, guides, artists, farmers, hospitality staff, longtime residents, and newer voices. Do not promise participation before people have agreed. State who will make introductions and who has authority to approve access.

That approach also reflects the broader shift from promotion alone toward stewardship and community trust. Destinations International's community engagement guidance emphasizes resident perspectives, local pride, and alignment between tourism and community well-being. Your production process should reflect those responsibilities before a camera arrives.

4. Separate the core story from the asset inventory

Start with the central piece: perhaps a three-minute destination film, a set of character stories, or a seasonal campaign concept. Then list the supporting assets separately. This keeps the project from becoming a shopping list where the most important film gets the least attention.

• Primary film or campaign story, including the intended length and audience
• Horizontal, square, and vertical cutdowns tied to actual placements
• Captioned and clean versions, plus any language versions
• Editorial still photography and web-ready crops
• Licensed selects or organized B-roll, if your team will need future edits
• Thumbnails, title cards, end cards, and paid-media variants

Be careful with "all raw footage." It sounds simple, but the cost and usefulness depend on logging, storage, releases, music, color treatment, and whether the footage can be used outside the original project. Ask for the future capability you need, then let bidders explain the cleanest way to provide it.

5. Put the distribution reality in the brief

A film for a homepage hero, a connected-TV placement, an Instagram campaign, a sales presentation, and a visitor center screen cannot be treated as the same deliverable in five sizes. Each has different pacing, framing, sound, caption, and call-to-action needs.

List confirmed channels, likely paid placements, landing pages, event uses, partner distribution, and the expected campaign window. If the media plan is still being developed, say that. A good production partner can help shape the asset system, but only if they know that distribution is part of the assignment.

6. Publish a budget range

Hiding the budget does not make proposals more competitive. It makes bidders guess whether you want two carefully produced stories or twenty lightly produced deliverables. The resulting scopes may be so different that price comparison becomes meaningless.

Give a range and state what it must include: travel, talent, location fees, music, permits, accessibility versions, contingency, post-production, usage, and taxes where applicable. Invite bidders to identify tradeoffs. The useful question is not "How much video can we buy?" It is "What is the strongest system of work this budget can support?"

7. Build the schedule around dependencies

A single final-delivery date hides the parts most likely to move. Include the anticipated selection date, contracting period, story development, local introductions, seasonal windows, shoot dates, review rounds, legal or board review, accessibility work, and launch. Name any immovable dates and explain why they are immovable.

Also state who consolidates feedback. Five stakeholders sending separate notes can cost more time than a rain day. One empowered project lead and a defined approval path are valuable pieces of scope.

8. Surface permits, airspace, and access early

Do not treat permits as a production-company footnote. Identify public lands, tribal lands, transportation property, private businesses, events, protected locations, controlled airspace, and any places with seasonal or operational restrictions. Say what your organization can coordinate and what the production partner must secure.

For drone work in the United States, commercial operators generally work under FAA Part 107, and controlled airspace can require authorization. The FAA advises that some authorization requests should be submitted well ahead of the proposed operation. A beautiful aerial idea is not a production plan until the access is real.

9. Decide what rights you actually need

Ownership, licensing, and possession of files are different things. Your RFP should address the finished films, photographs, project files, raw footage, music, talent releases, stock material, and the right to create future edits. It should also say whether tourism partners, municipalities, chambers, and media buyers may use the work.

Under U.S. copyright law, ownership begins with the author unless the work qualifies as a work made for hire or rights are transferred in writing. Have counsel shape the final contract language. From a production standpoint, the important move is to define the intended uses before proposals are priced, not after the edit is finished.

10. Include accessibility in the deliverables

Captions should not be an afterthought added the night before launch. Ask for accurate caption files and decide whether you also need open-caption versions, transcripts, audio description, language versions, or platform-specific safe areas. W3C guidance for prerecorded synchronized media calls for captions that include meaningful speech and non-speech audio information.

Accessibility affects editing, graphics, review, and delivery. When it is included in the original scope, it becomes part of the work instead of a compromise at the end.

11. Ask for proposals you can compare

Give every bidder the same response structure. Ask for their interpretation of the problem, proposed story-development process, production plan, team, relevant work, schedule, assumptions, itemized budget, rights, and references. Allow room for an alternate approach, but require a base response to the same scope.

Share the evaluation criteria in advance. It signals what your organization values and keeps the selection discussion from collapsing into a reel contest or a lowest-number contest. A practical scorecard might look like this:

What to leave out

• A frame-by-frame imitation of another destination's film. References can show tone or ambition, but copying the answer usually copies the wrong problem.
• A demand to "go viral." Distribution, timing, relevance, and audience response are shared responsibilities, not a deliverable a filmmaker can guarantee.
• An exhaustive shot list written before the story work. Name the non-negotiable places and people, then allow discovery.
• Speculative visitor or economic-impact promises that the project cannot measure.
• Unpaid creative treatments substantial enough to become usable campaign work. Ask for thinking, process, and relevant examples without turning procurement into free production.

A one-page brief before the full RFP

Before your team writes ten pages of procurement language, make sure it can agree on one page containing these answers:

1. The audience decision or perception that needs to change
2. The travel moment and primary audience
3. The central story opportunity, without prescribing the treatment
4. The people and places to which you can provide real access
5. The core film and supporting asset system
6. Confirmed distribution channels and campaign window
7. Budget range and required inclusions
8. Schedule, seasonal constraints, and approval path
9. Permit, airspace, property, and community considerations
10. Rights, partner usage, accessibility, and language needs
11. Proposal format and weighted evaluation criteria

If those answers are still unsettled, that is useful information. A short discovery engagement may be more valuable than rushing an RFP into the market. The goal is not to remove every unknown. It is to identify which unknowns the selected creative partner is being hired to solve.