COASTAL OBSERVER

A firm that works with top U.S. retailers will start providing data to the Chamber of Commerce to help figure out just how many people visit Georgetown County.

Every year the chamber gets the lion’s share of the county’s revenue from the 2 percent state tax on short-term rentals. By law, 30 percent must be used for marketing and the chamber is the county’s designated marketing organization, working with the Tourism Management Commission.

The chamber gets additional marketing funds in an annual grant cycle. In the past few years members of the county’s Accommodations Tax Advisory Committee, which recommends who gets the accommodation tax grants, and County Council, which approves the grants, have routinely questioned chamber officials about how many visitors are coming to the area.

“This is something that County Council members are really pushing with us. It will come up,” Mark Stevens, the chamber’s director of tourism, told the Tourism Management Commission last week. “We want to be able to answers these questions. I’ve gotten at least two calls from county employees wanting to know how many tourists are coming to the Hammock Coast. That is not anything we can answer specifically. We don’t have that data.”

In order to be able to answer the “how many visitors” question, the chamber will pay Placer.ai $38,000 for visitors data.

Placer is based in Israeli but has offices in Santa Cruz, Calif. Its client list includes Neiman Marcus, AMC Theaters, Planet Fitness, Whole Foods, Atlanta Downtown and the city of Seattle.

By tracking cell phone apps, Placer can tell how many people were in the area, how far they traveled to get here, how long they stayed, where they shopped and dined, and what the median salary is where they live. Placer uses the time a person stays in one place to differentiate between visitors or residents and employees. 

Placer does not collect a person’s email address or phone number and only tracks apps after a user has given permission to share their location.

Placer researched an Eagles tribute concert that was part of the Pawleys Island Festival of Music and Art last year and found that 49 percent of the attendees were from outside the area. 

Commission member David McMillan said he liked Placer because it would provide a lot of information about what people do when they’re visiting, which could differentiate between tourists and people who have second homes here and were in town for an event such as the Eagles tribute concert. 

“I believe the ability to look at those people who were singled out for the course of a weekend, or a week, or whatever their stay period is, is going to be very beneficial,” McMillan added. 

Placer was one of four tourism research companies the commission heard from. The other three were Downs & St. Germain, Voyage and Zartico.

Chamber CEO Beth Stedman told the commission that she and Stevens liked Placer and Downs & St. Germain, but called Placer’s information more “granular.” 

“We think it really has the benefit there,” she said.

“It’s where your cell phone is,” commission chairman Bob Seganti said. “There’s no other interpretation of that.”

Downs & St. Germain would have charged $80,000. Stevens said Placer’s original proposal was $65,000.

Commission member Brian Miller asked Stevens if he was concerned that Placer only used cell phone data. 

Steven said he would like to see a few sources to see how they match up. 

It is possible the chamber will pay for similar information from one of the other companies in the future.

McMillan made the motion to hire Placer because, he said, it would be the quickest way to start getting the information.

The vote was unanimous.

“It’s a good starting point,” Seganti said.