How does Zartico determine what points of interest to include in your ZDOS?
Maximizing Zartico's Place-Based Strategy will help you leverage your data on visitor movement. Let's talk through some FAQs that may come up about points of interest.
To learn more about how we use geolocation data to help you answer your destination questions, read Geolocation Data and the Destination Tourism Industry, by Dr. Alexandra V. Pasi.
Q: How many POIs should a destination have?
A: Our GIS team uses a tested methodology to not only ensure a solid distribution of POIs across many categories, but also to right-size your POIs based on destination size and population. Our general rule is 1 POI per 1,250 residents.
Q: How many POIs should I have in each region?
A: You should have at least 5 or 6 POIs in each region, and it is helpful if those POIs are a mix of several different categories.
Q: What are some criteria Zartico uses to determine a POI?
A: Points of interest are the places people plan their trip around visiting. These are the places featured in your ads, on your homepage, and in your itineraries. These are the places for which you want to have the greatest visibility because they are the marquee attractions in your destination and key areas to watch from a visitor distribution perspective.
POIs are permanent places and while they don’t have to receive visitation 365 days/year, they should not be used for other purposes.
POIs include drivers like National Parks, airports, major sports venues, convention centers, large destination resorts (where the visitor spends most of the time on the resort grounds), youth sports fields where key tournaments are hosted, amusement parks, state parks, etc.
Q: Can I include POIs outside of my formal destination boundaries?
A: Points of Interest that aren't within your destination's boundary are called "Out-of-Boundary POIs" or OOBs. You can find more information about those at this link.
Q: Should all of the restaurants and shops in our destination be included in our POIs?
A: We will include restaurants and shops if they are major drivers of visitation to your destination (for example, Michelin star or restaurants a Food Network personality would visit for a show.) Places like fast food restaurants and big box stores are brought in also not as trackable POIs, but to bolster visitation and spend.
Q: Can I see businesses that are stacked on top of each other separately?
A: We track the footprints of a places of impact. Imagine looking at a satellite map of your location. If a POI is stacked on top of another we cannot observe them as separate locations. For this reason, we include them as one single POI.
Q: Can you map individual POIs within a strip mall?
A: We don't map the individual places within a strip mall, shopping mall or multi-tenant building because can't know where the interior walls of a given place are. For this reason, we can't accurately and confidently determine where one business within a multi-tenant building ends and the other begins. For data integrity our rule of thumb is "single-rooftop footprints;" whereby, if there are multiple tenants under one space, we map as one building rather than isolating the individual tenants.
Q: How small can a POI be? How sensitive are geolocation observations? For example, if a concert stage in a field is mapped, how close can people get to the stage to be observed? Or a shop on Main Street?
A: Approximately 15 - 65 feet (or 5 - 20 meters) is the “sensitivity” of a device observation. This means that POIs that are close together are harder to distinguish one from another. For this reason, it is often recommended that shops close together are mapped as a group.
Q: What if one of my POIs extends beyond our destination boundary?
A: That's okay! Sometimes large parks or airports may straddle two or more counties or borders. That entire POI will be included in your ZDOS™, BUT remember that a device will still need to be observed within your destination boundary for more than 2 hours to be counted. So a person who visits that extending POI outside of your boundary, but never crosses into your destination boundary or does so for less than 2 hours will not be counted in your observed visitor numbers.
Q: Can we include a street as a POI that hosts a popular festival in our area?
A: We don’t recommend doing this because the pass-through traffic would skew the data in your ZDOS™ every other day of the year. The best solution to measure this event would be through a dynamic visualization rather than mapping a POI for this street.
Q: Can we map a POI for a boat ramp or other specific access point where we'd like to see visitation numbers?
A: No. The area needs to be large enough that geolocation sensitivity will capture visitation to that area specifically. Also, you will need to consider app usage within that specific area. Since Zartico geolocation data is captured by location sharing in app usage, visitors are observed when they are using and sharing their location within that area.
Q: What if I want to track a POI that is in a dead zone or has very poor cell reception?
A: We know when a device is outside of cell coverage, it reduces app usage and therefore the volume of geolocation data, due to the usability of some apps. However, the data Zartico collects from the apps is GPS data with a timestamp. This means if an app is being used offline, it's still collecting GPS data, and this uploads again when the device is back in coverage or in wifi service.
Q: I know of a POI (like a new hotel) that is being built right now... should I wait to add it later when it is done?
A: If a POI is being built and you know where it will be (like the general footprint of the building on a map), go ahead and request it and we can work with you to draw it ac accurately as possible.
Q: Will my Out of Boundary POI show up in my ZDOS?
A: Your OOB POI visitation will not be calculated within visitation to Regions, POI Categories or other charts pulling visitation from your Primary POI visitation, because out-of-boundary POIs are not located within any region. There are two charts in your ZDOS™ where you can see visitation specifically to these OOB PoIs. We use out-of-boundary POIs in your Dynamic Visualizations to show visitor movement between that POI and your destination. We don’t include these OOB POIs in the majority of your ZDOS visitation because many of the visitors to these places never make it to the partner destination and their inclusion throws off the analysis of origin markets, Visitor-to-Resident ratio and other key metrics.
Q: Why is the visitor radius set at 50 miles from home location?
A: We are working to standardize all data insights so we can provide more value across the board to our partners. The 50 miles within Home location is consistent with the US Travel standards and metrics.
Q: Why are there POIs listed in "other" category?
A: The category "Other" will show up in your ZDOS if any POI lands outside a region. Every POI should be included in a region. If you see an "other" category, you may need to review your regions to ensure that your entire destination boundary is included in a region.
Q: Can I have a short-term rental as a POI?
A: You cannot turn a short-term rental into a POI because it is considered a private residence. You can track information on your short-term rentals through any short-term rental lodging connections you bring in.
Q: Can I request a unique POI like a statue or street?
A: The Place-Based Strategy is designed to efficiently and reliably give you insight into the movement of visitors across your destination. The value in this is to give you a strategic edge to make the most impactful decisions for your place. Therefore, it is important to use standard and established places with definitive footprints in your place.
Remember that big data is more effectively used for seeing trends over time in your destinations. Some questions you may want to ask yourself:
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How does measuring X align with your strategy?
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Is this a place you promote in your marketing campaigns or itineraries?
- Is this a permanent place dedicated to a specific place that can be categories in the standard POI categories?
Have additional questions that aren't covered here? Send us a message!