How to Evaluate DMC Proposals: A Simple Scorecard for Planners

What we tell planners

A proposal is not a winner because the cover is a lion. Score it. Suggested weights you can paste into a sheet: destination fit and inventory honesty (20); operations plan — named lead, 24-hour desk, meet-and-greet, vehicle standards (20); duty of care — medevac, hospitals, night-driving, optional-activity gates (15); commercial clarity — itemised versus lump, what is excluded, cancellation (15); programme design that matches headcount and diary (15); references and association standing (TATO, KATO, SITE, MPI, IATA as relevant) (10); communication quality and will-nots (5). Adjust weights; do not drop duty of care to zero because the gala sketch was pretty.

SITE Pulse work among meeting and incentive professionals has repeatedly put local expertise and reputation/relationships well ahead of technology platforms or sheer scale when planners choose a DMC. That matches how East Africa fails: the airstrip, the permit, the tide, the cyclone, the gorilla family — not the app. Ask who is on the ground at 05:10, not which CRM they use.

Red flags: one price with no stack; copied lodge names they cannot hold; promised Migration crossings; a 200-person camp; no visa matrix; no weather clause for Mauritius December–April; ‘we can do all eight countries in six nights’; unnamed subcontractors for boats and coaches. Green flags: a constraint paragraph, a split-camp or split-family plan, dated visa notes, connectivity honesty, a sample ops annex, and a clear statement of air-in versus air-out.

Score three proposals the same way. If you sole-source, write why (inventory, incumbent ops, time). Present the scorecard to procurement so the decision is auditable. Then run a go/no-go call before you award — chemistry and a live constraint question matter more than another moodboard revision.