Through Zartico, geolocation data shows where people are going within your destination, how long they stay, and where they are from. Find out answers to commonly asked questions here!
How does Zartico’s mobile location data work?
Our location data provider provides us with a daily flow of raw data from people’s devices (such as mobile phones). We ingest this data identifying visitors vs residents, where visitors have come from outside your destination, where they go while they are in your destination, and how long they stay.
Details: We design a place-based approach to interpreting location data for both visitors and residents in your destination. The one constant for any destination is the physical places people come to explore and experience as a visitor. So we take those physical places and interpret them digitally, like a map, so location data can be understood through them. This gives us a clearer view of how visitors travel around from place to place. We ingest location data every single day and this data registers someone’s location by where their device, such as a phone, is at any given moment throughout a day using GPS coordinates. These coordinates are shared through the mobile apps users have opted-in on their personal device. We then take this data and filter it through the map of places and areas in your destination.
Does Zartico ingest any personally identifiable information (PII)?
No, our privacy protection policy ensures we do not see any personally identifiable information whatsoever. All data is anonymized and absent of any trackable information. Even the device ID is anonymized before Zartico receives the data.
Details: Zartico and our data partners are committed to transparency and protecting the privacy and personal information of individuals. See the privacy statements of our geolocation and spending partners for additional information.
Zartico receives geolocation data representing approx. 5% of discernible human movement observations. Is this a statistically significant number to gain insights and make decisions?
Our geolocation data, which represents about five percent of visitation, is the largest commercially available, and we independently verify it for accuracy. We work hard to make sure it is trustworthy as a sample size for you to have true directional insight into your visitor economy.
Details: Our location data is the largest commercially available data of this type. In other words, it's not possible for anyone to have more location data than you would have through the Zartico application. Not only do we acquire this large amount of data, through our integrated data model, we clean and check it before it gets loaded into our system, making it more trustworthy than anything else you can find. This five percent of devices we see provides a reliable sample size for you to see directional trends that matter, just as in much other statistical research, such as medical studies, sample sizes are used to show overall indicators.
How does Zartico qualify a device as a visitor? How do you know the tracked devices are visitors vs. residents ( or commuters)?
From the abundance of data we get on each device, we set very specific criteria that allow us to exclude residents and commuters from who we identify as a visitor.
Details: Using our geolocation data, we are able to determine where devices (such as a mobile phone) are usually located in the middle of the night. This provides an indicator of where the person who owns the device is from and where the device ‘sleeps’. We call this common location. We filter all the devices to find those found within your destination who are truly visitors. In order to count as a visitor from our Zartico methodology, a person has to be more than 50 miles from their home or work location, be within the destination boundary for more than 2 hours, and visit at least one place that you have designated as a tourism-related place of impact (POI).
How many POI's do I get with Zartico?
The number of primary places of impact you get is unlimited but we will work with you to recommend the ideal amount based on your destination’s features and needs.
Details: With Zartico place-based strategy there’s no limit on POIs, or primary places of impact, you can designate within the Zartico application. Many POIs are brought in for you automatically to strengthen the signal of visitation we receive, and we refer to these as contextual POIs— things like chain restaurants. You get to select your primary POIs— primary drivers of tourism in your destination, such as a museum or theme park. These become a filter for you to be able to watch more closely for visitation trends and to correlate with your other data. Taking into account your destination’s size and features, Zartico will provide recommendations on the amount of primary POIs which will be most beneficial to you.
Is Zartico’s data strong enough in smaller rural destinations or places that do not have cell service?
Our location data covers everywhere people go with their devices, such as mobile phones. If there are people moving around your destinations with a phone, we will get location data from a portion of them.
Details: Regardless of the size of your destination, our geolocation data provides valuable insights into the visitor flow for your visitor economy. We're able to provide the clearest view of your visitor economy by ensuring you have enough primary and contextual places of interest. By being able to customize our approach to how we filter the geolocation data we get, which comes from mobile devices, we can build a precise grid for even rural locations. Plus, you get to designate the primary places you want to monitor. Also, the way our location data is captured means it works even when there is no cell coverage in an area. Our location data is captured as GPS coordinates and stored locally on the device, and sent from the device to our data provider when it is next within range. For example, if a visitor went to a popular hiking trail where there is no cell service, their coordinates during their trip would be captured and then sent to our data provider when they next returned to their hotel, to be counted in that location’s device volume.
Can Zartico allow me to POI something in a different state for competitive purposes?
It’s not recommended to POI a place outside of your destination’s boundary because of how it can affect your data, but we do have suggestions on how to think about comparisons of this kind and invite conversation around your unique needs.
Details: In order to keep your geolocation data in the Zartico application providing you with the clearest insights for your own destination, all places of impact must be within the boundary you establish for your destination. However, there are possibilities in how we approach benchmarking, comparisons, and specific places you want to look at more closely that you can discuss with your strategic data advisor.
How does Zartico’s 7 day processing period play into the date filter function that says 1 day ago… Is that really 8 days ago?
The date displayed in the Zartico application is the date the data is for. We take the raw data we receive and carefully analyze and check it before it is loaded into our application, and this happens over a rolling period of 7 days.
Details: When you see a date through the geolocation data in Zartico application, it relates to the date the location observation occurred. For example if someone went to a beach on a Saturday, the data will count as that Saturday’s date within the application. However, as data from the most recent 7 days is processed and checked, it will be added as additional data for those days. Once the date you are looking at is more than 7 days away from today’s date, the full data has been loaded.
What does the term “normalization” mean at Zartico?
Normalization means cleaning up the data and checking it for irregularities, so what you see in the Zartico application is trustworthy.
Details: Normalization is the standard process of processing and checking the raw location data we receive against several other data sources to make sure it is reliable before it gets loaded for you in the Zartico application. This also ensures when our data provider gains or loses a data source, you do not see an artificial spike or decline in your geolocation data.
Does Zartico use any correlation between the area code of the cellphone and their origin market?
We do not use area codes of cell phones as a measure of what origin market people come from, as we have other more reliable and precise ways to do so through our geolocation data.
Details: We determine someone’s origin market by what we know about their devices. Using our geolocation data, we are able to determine where devices (such as a mobile phone) are usually located in the middle of the night. This provides an indicator of where the person who owns the device is from, and is updated monthly for accuracy.
If the Sample Size for geolocation includes unique mobile devices, does that mean if a visitor makes more than one trip to the destination, they are only counted once?
Yes, it is deduped by hashed device ID. So it will dedupe at whatever level you slice it. If someone is there 4 days of Dec, they will show up once if you slice by month. If you look by day, they will be counted once every day. But for the Sample Size, the visitor will only be counted once for the timeframe selected.
Interested in more FAQs?
Check out:
- FAQs on Setting Up POIs
- FAQs on Event Data
- FAQs on Website Contribution Data
- FAQs on Visitor Spending Data
- General FAQs
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