Municipalities and local government leaders can use location intelligence to attract business, optimize their community services, boost tourism, and improve revenue management and forecasting.
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Foot traffic data, sometimes called location analytics or footfall data, analyzes the movement of people from place to place. It includes microdata, such as visitor counts, and bigger-picture data, like demographic shifts within populations. Information can be gathered from various sources, but the most common is mobile location data.
Foot traffic analytics can enhance municipal operations by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of an area, highlighting what economic opportunities lie untapped, and providing detailed insights into a demographic. Foot traffic data can provide in-depth insights into which municipal strategies are likely to succeed and aid decision-making processes. Cities can use foot traffic data to identify unmet retail needs to show businesses why they should consider opening stores in the area.
Read on to see some of the ways to leverage foot traffic for effective planning and development.
Until recently, traffic and visitor counts provided the main bulk of the foot traffic data available. While those tools can provide useful insight into a population, they can only provide so much information. Mobile location technology has advanced in recent years, making it easier to understand population segments than ever before. And though the phrase “foot traffic data” has often been associated with the retail segment, local governments can harness location data to gain a deeper understanding of their demographics.
Before location analytics became widespread, officials often relied on self-reported information to gain insight into where visitors to a given destination were coming from. Today, movement patterns in and around designated points of interest (POIs) can be mapped out with ease with Placer.ai's True Trade Area (TTA) analysis. True Trade Area provides a clear, mobile-powered visualization of the zip codes or census block groups (CBGs) feeding visits to specific areas, allowing professionals to accurately measure and analyze visitor behavior in their regions.
As an example, a community center could utilize TTA data to discover where visitors come from and how frequently they visit – to more effectively plan and advertise events. In addition, visitation metrics at similar venues could be compared with one another, to provide a zoomed-out view of the different sites and their trade area profiles.
Effective municipal planning takes into account the demographics in a given area, and looks to understand relevant segments. Analyzing trade areas with demographic and psychographic datasets can shed light on the unique characteristics of a given community – and of the people who tend to visit it. The Placer Marketplace offers a wide range of datasets that show the characteristics and preferences of a given area, which can be leveraged in many ways.
For example, the FollowGraph by Spatial dataset on Placer’s Marketplace identified an above-average interest in certain high-end and luxury brands for the trade area of downtown Atlanta, GA’s office district. With the ability to filter between many different retail segments and compare them to a nationwide benchmark, municipal planners can encourage the opening of businesses that cater to the broader preferences of the workers in the area.
A wide range of municipal functions can be informed using foot traffic data – from creating a better understanding of whether residents of a city or visitors to it constitute foot traffic to a specific landmark.
Every city will see populations constantly shifting and changing – people find new jobs and move away, an office opens in the area and brings an influx of new workers, or cost of living changes make a move necessary. These shifts may leave municipal workers unsure as to which community services need to be offered.
And the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated certain migration trends, some cities saw fairly noticeable population jumps while others saw declines. These shifts can be identified across various metrics using foot traffic data. The migration tools on the Placer.ai platform provide a way to track migration trends to every state, city, or zip code and see where people are moving across the US. This information allows local leaders to identify if a region is gaining popularity or losing its population, and learn about associated demographic changes. Placer's free Migration Trends tool clearly visualizes how populations are shifting. Meanwhile, the Placer.ai Blog or Domestic Migration Trends white paper offers context on different migration patterns across the US.
Local governments will prioritize attracting retailers to their region through incentives and grants, as a robust retail foundation fuels the local economy and creates jobs. Local shopping areas can meet the surrounding community's needs by curating the right mix of retailers, which is crucial for boosting foot traffic and supporting local businesses. City planners can use mobile location data to discover business opportunities and serve an area better, as seen in the example of Atlanta’s office district.
City officials can use location intelligence to identify the types of businesses that are likely to bring a wider range of visitors to these areas and use this information to promote their region to such businesses or plan strategic incentive programs.
Another aspect of city planning centers around uncovering retail gaps. "Retail leakage," or losing out on potential sales, occurs when there are insufficient retail resources in a city, causing would-be consumers to take their shopping – and tax revenue – outside the city. Municipal planners who identify these leaks and find retail investments to patch them up need a thorough understanding of both local consumers and markets.
The Placer Marketplace has a variety of datasets, such as STI: Popstats or AGS: Retail Potential/Gap, that can identify areas with unfulfilled consumer demand. These tools draw on a multitude of data points to pinpoint retail opportunities. Factors such as population growth forecasts and consumer expenditure within and outside different retail areas are used in tandem with Placer.ai data to create retail forecasts.
Smaller or peripheral cities can sometimes struggle to attract national retailers and can use the Void Analysis report to identify best-fit retailers and demonstrate the role they can fill within the existing market. The Void Analysis report determines where a retail gap exists within a shopping center or geographical area and can show what retailer would be the best fit for the community surrounding the center.
The data sets available on the Placer.ai platform can help accurately demonstrate the available business opportunities and potential with numbers to back it up.
Learn how retail brands and real estate professionals use foot traffic data to select a new location in our retail site selection guide.
Tourism drives economic growth – not just to the tourist sites themselves but to surrounding businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and shops. Local leaders can create jobs and promote initiatives that attract more tourists – a net benefit for any city.
Location data is crucial in this process, helping municipalities identify untapped tourism and travel opportunities to ignite visitors' interest in a region. For example, location insights may show that a site is attracting visitors from areas with higher-than-average shares of families with children. In that case, city officials might prioritize child-friendly infrastructure when allocating budgets.
Request a ready-to-use Trip Origination by Market report using the Placer Xtra service to analyze multi-day or overnight tourism.
Most cities have attractions with unmet potential. Municipalities can tap into location data to analyze low-performance areas – uncovering the demographic and psychographic characteristics of regions feeding visitors to the area to understand what draws these visitors to the site and more effectively target these more willing audiences.
Location intelligence tools can also help city planners and other local officials decide where to focus redevelopment efforts or upgrades. Aside from identifying where visitors are coming from, these tools also help compare visits across different time periods to track any changes in overall foot traffic, dwell time, or visitor frequency.
Many stakeholders are involved in actualizing successful city projects, from federal grant offices to municipal officials – and these stakeholders want to invest their resources in projects that are most likely to succeed. Whether a city undertook a long capital improvement project or initiated a campaign to attract more tourists to a local site, location data can be instrumental in highlighting the impact of efforts and in measuring success.
Stakeholders can be kept abreast of a project’s progress utilizing metrics such as visitation numbers or visit duration, available on Placer.ai's platform. Comparing metrics before and after a project kickoff can demonstrate the impact of a given initiative, for example, by indicating changes in visitation not only to a specific area or venue but also to nearby businesses. These metrics can also highlight whether the composition of visitors, residents, and employees has shifted, how dwell times have changed, and if previously unreached audiences are moving to the area.
One of the main focuses of any city planning committee revolves around budgetary constraints. Weighing policy concerns and improvement plans against anticipated revenues and determining how to allocate funds are central to city planning. Accurate models that can help estimate tax and revenue to create better projections for yearly budgets can be crucial to municipal leaders.
Visitation data to local retailers and venues can help build accurate budgets by identifying the businesses fueling the local economy. Municipalities can pinpoint potential sales tax revenue from stores by comparing sales data with visits to the retailer in question, and extrapolating revenue potential based on that historical data.
Other significant sources of revenue come in the form of public events. State fairs, themed festivals, sporting events – hosting public events can draw in many visitors, both local and national.
Events can drive additional revenue to a given area and bring publicity that piques the interest of those outside the community, further increasing year-round tourism.
Accurately measuring the actual impact of such events can be challenging, as often measured across many metrics. Analyzing where visitors came from, how long they stayed, and which other businesses they visited after the event can show the true ripple effects of tourism. This information can help city officials plan marketing efforts for future events. Additionally, city councils can show these data-driven success stories to stakeholders such as event sponsors, advertisers, donors, and local organizations.
Learn more about how to drive economic success in your community.
Location data can provide a wealth of information to cities looking to make data-driven decisions. Municipalities can use this information to learn about their cities' demographics, understand movement in and out of the city, or even look at details as small as visitation trends to the local shopping center.
Visit placer.ai for more information.
