Visit Tunisia has partnered with CrossBoundary, a global investment advisory firm, to provide transaction advisory support to Tunisian tourism companies and projects seeking to raise private capital.

Founded in 2011, CrossBoundary aims to unlock capital for sustainable growth and strong returns in emerging and underserved markets. To date, the group has facilitated more than $800 million in transactions worldwide.

CrossBoundary’s advisory supports helps accelerate the growth of SMEs in a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, health, education, and information and communication technology.

Under Visit Tunisia, CrossBoundary plans to support more than twelve high-potential Tunisian SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) to increase their access to capital and mobilize at least $20 million of capital in Tunisia’s tourism sector. The firm’s comprehensive support, to both capital-seekers and investors, includes preparing marketing documentation, financial models, market research, feasibility studies, investor matching, deal structuring, and more.

CrossBoundary’s target capital seekers include alternative accommodation providers, adventure tourism companies, cultural tourism companies, handicrafts businesses, tourism technology-enabled businesses, tourism transportation service providers, hospitality suppliers, and tourism education institutions.

To reach its ambitious objectives, CrossBoundary has divided its support into three phases – project launch and landscaping, identification, and implementation.

In the first phase, CrossBoundary consulted stakeholders and investors in conversations and surveys to map Tunisia’s tourism landscape. It then developed a tourism capital map and conducted comprehensive analysis of the investment landscape, including investment barriers and opportunities. This informed a work plan detailing its planned approach, defining strategic priorities, and presenting innovative financing interventions in the tourism sector. This work plan will inform CrossBoundary’s activities over the course of the Visit Tunisia project.

In its second phase (identification), CrossBoundary prioritized potential interventions to address working capital and other specialized financing needs of Tunisian tourism organizations, such as asset financing. The firm also identified potential SMEs that could benefit from such financing support by conducting outreach to groups identified through the landscaping process and their vast network, while Visit Tunisia published a digital expression of interest on its website to attract potential beneficiaries. The initiative was also featured in major Tunisian press outlets, such as finance website ilBoursa.

CrossBoundary/Visit Tunisia then evaluated potential beneficiaries based on criteria such as their sustainability, compliance with local regulations, impact on local communities, target transaction size, transaction timeline, and debt history. (Find out more information about partnership eligibility here). To date, the initiative has identified 41 potential SME partners and evaluated 25, including highly promising candidates.

In CrossBoundary’s final support phase (Implementation), it will provide targeted transaction support to select SMEs. Transaction support will be flexible and may be provided in multiple forms, such as investment facilitation, capital raise for public private partnerships (PPPs), or structuring of innovative interventions.

To stay up to date about SMEs receiving support through Visit Tunisia and CrossBoundary’s partnership, follow Visit Tunisia’s website and Facebook page , where we will post inspiring stories of tourism SMEs and initiatives throughout the country.