News • 04/29/2025

The Digital Italy Agency has published the call for tenders for the pre-commercial procurement “Digital solutions and services for the socio-economic development of peripheral territorial communities through the creation and enhancement of cultural tourism destinations,” worth a total of 10 million euros. 

 

The initiative is funded by the Complementary Operational Program (POC) “Research and Innovation 2014-2020” of the Ministry of University and Research and is promoted as part of the “Smarter Italy” innovation procurement enhancement program, funded by the Prime Minister's Office - Department for Digital Transformation. 

 

The subject of the contract is the execution of a research and development project aimed at the conception and pre-commercial implementation of digital solutions and services for the socio-economic development of peripheral territorial communities, through the creation or enhancement of tourist-cultural destinations. 

 

Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) on the enhancement of cultural tourism destinations is a multi-stage, multi-awardee procurement. AgID plays the role of a pre-commercial central purchasing body. In Phase I, about 3 million euros are available for up to eight awardees. In the subsequent phases, during which testing of the proposed innovative solutions will take place, the selected bidders from the initial eight successful bidders will continue the path with the remaining budget provided in the contract. 

 

All interested parties can propose their project by submitting technical-economic bids no later than 1 p.m. on June 16, 2025. The notice and all relevant documentation can be found on AgID's website on this page. 

 

The publication of the procurement was preceded by an open market consultation. You can review the consultation events and retrace the entire process leading up to the publication of the notice by logging on to AgID's Youtube channel playlist dedicated to innovative and digital procurement. 

 

Description of the challenge 

 

Italy is one of the countries with the highest presence of historical-cultural assets in the world. Many of these are concentrated in certain metropolises and areas of the territory where there are standard services and itineraries aimed at their enhancement and convenient and complete enjoyment for tourists. 

 

The areas surrounding these large centers in most cases also have at their disposal a great artistic and cultural heritage that could represent a huge socioeconomic resource and thus an opportunity for growth and enhancement for the territorial community. However, these areas suffer from the phenomenon of overtourism due to large tourist flows that mainly affect the country's major cities and globally recognized cultural areas. 

 

The innovative solutions sought by this challenge will have to contribute to the creation of an ecosystem capable of intercepting large tourist flows and better integrating with the geography of the territories in order to foster their social and economic growth through the enhancement of the artistic-cultural heritage present. 

 

“Destination management” solutions that could be used by institutions (e.g., museums, public tourism promotion companies), but also cultural associations, merchants' associations, religious communities, business initiatives and in general by anyone who cares about the enhancement of a community's cultural assets. 

 

The call for tender was built together with market players through an open innovation approach, and market consultations registered the interest of more than 700 stakeholders, including public entities (23%), universities and public and private research centers (12%), large companies (12%), SMEs and startups (38%), particularly operators in the tourism and cultural sector and the technology innovation sector. 

 

AgID gathered operators' experiences during plenary events and through “One to One” meetings, an innovative format devised by the agency that involves a “face-to-face” dialogue, in public, between the operator and the contracting station. More than 40 market operators requested a dedicated one-to-one session. 

 

Business operators, companies, universities, research centers, third sector entities, individuals, etc. interested in the challenge can still fill out the “expression of interest” form and participate in “Let's team up!”, the tool made available by AgID - to which almost 300 operators have already signed up - to encourage business groupings, thus increasing the competitiveness of the bids and enabling those participating in the call to respond more effectively to the demand for innovation.