Public sector seeks consultancy to manage digital service lifecycles
A new cross-border contract will buy consultancy to design, run and manage public digital solutions, with likely effects on sectors such as travel and tourism.
A new cross-border contract will buy consultancy to design, run and manage public digital solutions, with likely effects on sectors such as travel and tourism.
Follow Tenderlake on LinkedIn for concise insights on public-sector tenders and emerging procurement signals.
The European Commission’s central digital services directorate is preparing to buy wide-ranging consultancy support for the full lifecycle of its digital solutions. The contract covers management, design, operations and data management, delivered from both far-site and near-site locations across the EU. While the brief notice focuses on internal capabilities, the work could influence how a broad range of public-facing online services are planned and run, including those that touch on travel, regional promotion and tourism.
On 26th November 2025, the European Commission, DG DIGIT – Digital Services, published a contract notice for External Consultancy for Digital Solutions. The procedure aims to procure external consultancy services for digital solution lifecycle management, including management, design, operations and data management.
The brief description points to a cradle-to-grave approach to the systems in scope. Rather than limiting support to isolated projects or ad hoc troubleshooting, the Commission is looking for partners who can help steer digital solutions through their full lifecycle: from initial design and architecture, through day-to-day operations, to the handling and governance of the data those systems generate.
A notable feature is the requirement for both far-site and near-site service provision across various locations in the EU. That combination suggests the Commission wants the flexibility to draw on remote expertise while still having access to consultants who can engage more closely with users and stakeholders in specific locations when needed.
Key commercial details such as contract value, volumes and duration are not set out in the short notice. Even so, the fact that the buyer is the Commission’s own digital services arm underlines the strategic importance of the work. Digital systems managed at this level often sit behind multiple programmes and policy areas, rather than a single, isolated service.
By explicitly combining management, design, operations and data management, the notice frames digital solutions as long-term assets rather than standalone IT projects. Design decisions shape how well systems can be operated; operational practices affect the quality and reliability of data; and data management determines what insight public authorities can draw from their services.
The inclusion of data management is particularly significant. It implies that consultants will not only keep systems running, but will also help ensure that the information they handle remains usable, consistent and properly governed. For cross-border services, where information flows between institutions and between levels of government, weaknesses in data organisation can quickly undermine the user experience.
For citizens and businesses, the benefit of stronger lifecycle thinking is simple: public digital services that change less abruptly, fail less often and evolve in ways that reflect real usage. For institutions such as the Commission, it offers a way to align technology decisions with policy goals, rather than letting individual applications grow apart from each other.
Tourism has become one of the sectors most exposed to the quality of public digital infrastructure. Travellers now expect to discover destinations, plan routes, understand local rules and access cultural or environmental information through digital channels that feel coherent and reliable.
Although the Commission’s consultancy contract does not single out tourism, its broad focus on “digital solutions” means it is likely to touch systems that support travel and regional development policy, funding instruments and the information flows that underpin destination promotion. Improvements in how such systems are designed, operated and managed could, over time, be felt in the tools that regions and cities use to attract and manage visitors.
Destination marketing and visitor information services depend heavily on content management, integration between platforms, and the ability to track and understand user behaviour. Consultancies with experience in running complex, data-rich digital services for tourism bodies, cities or cultural institutions may find that expertise translates well into the lifecycle and data-management focus set out in the Commission’s notice.
For local and regional tourism authorities, the direction of travel is also clear: they increasingly plug into wider “smart” platforms rather than running completely standalone systems. The Commission’s move to reinforce its own digital capabilities sits alongside a series of similar initiatives across Europe that are reshaping the digital environment in which destinations market themselves.
The new Commission contract is one of many in 2025 that show public bodies turning to external specialists for broad, long-term digital support rather than isolated upgrades.
In July 2025, Italy’s CSI Piemonte launched a procurement for Specialized IT Support Services. That procedure seeks specialist IT support for public administration entities, with a clear focus on innovation, digital transformation and strategic objectives across sectors including local authorities, digital health and cybersecurity. The Italian notice, like the Commission’s, highlights the need for external expertise that can sit alongside in-house teams over time.
In November 2025, Oslo municipality published its Digital Services Development in Oslo agreement. Oslo is looking for the expertise and resources needed to develop and manage high-quality digital services, support technological advancement and address future needs. The emphasis there, as in Brussels, is on a continuous pipeline of work rather than a single project.
Central governments are moving in the same direction. In June 2025, France’s Direction des Achats de l’Etat advertised a Project Management Support Services framework to back digital transformation. The agreement offers beneficiaries a menu of support from studies and audits to change management, project design support and functional testing. In November 2025, another central buyer, the Generalsekretariat, launched IT Services Framework Contracts covering development of specialised applications, digital services and automated processes, alongside project management, agile coaching, design thinking, data architecture and IT security.
Local and intercommunal bodies are likewise reshaping their digital foundations. In September 2025, the Syndicat intercommunal des technologies de l'information pour les villes went to market for Digital Tools Development and Maintenance. Its framework, divided into multiple lots, spans identity management, collaborative messaging, document management, communication platforms, e-learning, free telephony and password management for local agents and elected officials. In November 2025, Brussels-based GIAL / i-CITY sought to establish a framework for Consultancy and IT Services, mixing business and strategic consultancy with IT solution implementation and management in areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, data analytics and project management.
Some of the most visible intersections with tourism come from city- and region-wide platforms. In November 2025, Portugal’s Área Metropolitana de Lisboa launched a procurement for Metropolitan Digital Solution Services to implement and operate a metropolitan digital solution for the AML – Smart Region project, covering several thematic verticals and the provision of sensors. In July 2025, Zaragoza’s city authorities tendered for Digital Twin Services Development, seeking city volume visualisation, interoperability frameworks and technical advice for machine learning environments. While these notices do not explicitly target tourism, smart-region platforms, sensor networks and urban digital twins are natural tools for understanding how people move through places – insight that destination managers value.
Service delivery models are evolving too. In November 2025, BG-Phoenics GmbH issued a notice for Support Services for Digital Workplace, covering four roles in the digital workplace sector, with services provided primarily remotely and some work on site in Munich. This mix of remote and local delivery mirrors the far-site and near-site options the Commission is building into its own consultancy purchase.
The Commission’s notice offers only a high-level sketch of what will be a substantial piece of work for whichever consultancy or consortia win the contract. Detailed technical, organisational and governance requirements will sit in the procurement documentation behind the summary.
What is clear is the direction of travel: towards long-term partnerships that span design, operations and data management, and towards flexible delivery models that blend remote expertise with presence across different EU locations. As regional smart-region platforms, city digital twins and local digital toolkits multiply, the performance of centrally managed systems will matter more and more to sectors such as tourism that rely on consistent, trustworthy information across borders.
Observers of Europe’s tourism and digital markets will be watching how this procurement is structured and delivered. It will offer a window into how central institutions see the next phase of their digital evolution – and into the role external consultants will play in shaping the services that visitors and residents encounter every day.
Follow Tenderlake on LinkedIn for concise insights on public-sector tenders and emerging procurement signals.