Representatives from the Lake Geneva Business Improvement District have received some grant funding to obtain software that will help them track visitor spending.
Members of the Lake Geneva Tourism Commission approved, July 8, to award an $11,000 grant to Business Improvement District officials to allow them to participate in a cooperative program offered by representatives from the Walworth County Visitors Bureau, which will allow them to purchase a one-year subscription to Placer.ai.
The grant was approved by a 4-2 vote with Tourism Commission members Zakia Pirzada and Alderwoman Mary Jo Fesenmaier voting âno.â
Business Improvement District officials plan to use about $5,000 of the grant funding to obtain a one-year subscription to the Placer.ai software as part of the cooperative program and $6,000 to administer reports based on the information that the software provides.
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Placer.ai software allows subscribers to obtain information such as how many people visited a business, how many people attended an event, from which areas or communities are visitors coming from, how many visitors are staying overnight at a hotel and median income of the average tourist.
The information is obtained through the applications that visitors use on their cellphone. Businesses typically use the information to promote products and services to potential customers, and tourism-related organizations use it to help promote future events or local attractions.
As part of the grant funding, representatives from the Business Improvement District have agreed to represent a monthly report to the Tourism Commission members to show them how well events they have awarded marketing grants for were attended and from which areas or communities attendees came.
Business Improvement District representatives also will present a report to the organizations that hosted an event.
Officials from the organization also plan to use the information to help determine how many people visit downtown businesses.
âOn our side of things weâre looking for event impact but also possible attraction pieces for new development in businesses as we go forward,â Business Improvement District Executive Director Alexandria Binanti said. âSo itâs multi-faceted on our end, but weâre here to partner in a way to look at the data that would be advantageous for future grant funds.â
Alderman Ken Howell, who also is a member of Tourism Commission, said the software would help the Tourism Commission members determine whether to award a grant for an event in the future and to inform the host organization about which areas they may want to market their event.
âThe benefit we would get out of this as a tourism commission is we would be able to evaluate the places we give grants to, find out what was successful, where they pulled their people from and we would know whether to renew it next year,â Howell said. âLetâs say we had a ping pong tournament in Lake Geneva that we sponsored and all of them came from Chicago. Well then we would tell them thatâs where you might want to advertise or maybe nobody came at all, then we donât want to sponsor that event next year. This is information for us to evaluate our grants.â
Brian Waspi, chairman for the Tourism Commission, said the software also would be able to provide information which indicates how well an event has been attended during the past few years.
âYou can actually can go back in time,â Waspi said. âSo if you had somebody come in and say, âHey, this is our fourth year.â You can go back and look at each year to not only know how many people came, but what percentage of those went to a hotel after the event and stayed overnight.â
Lesser grant amounts proposed
Pirzada proposed awarding a $5,000 grant to help Business Improvement District officials just pay for the subscription cost, because they will be using the software for their purposes as well as preparing reports for the Tourism Commission.
âIf the BID is using it outside of the Tourism Commission then they should take up the administration cost. We shouldnât have to pay for that,â Pirzada said. âThey are getting the software because of the Tourism Commission. Instead of $11,000, we can pay the $5,000 because they are using it outside of tourism.â
Fesenmaier proposed a motion to award the Business Improvement District a $5,500 grant insteadâ $2,500 for the Placer.ai subscription and $3,000 for the organization to administer the reports.
âI donât think weâre arguing the quality of the data. I think for, for me, itâs not justifying the amount but how itâs spent,â Fesenmaier said. âIf we specify that we are granting $2,500 for the subscription and $3,000 for the administration for pulling in the reports, I think we can justify it and then say to people, âThe BID is bearing the other half of the cost.ââ
Waspi said he is in favor of awarding the $11,000 grant because the Business Improvement District would use the software to provide valuable information to the Tourism Commission.
âWeâre talking about $11,000 for a whole yearâs worth of data that will give us information that will increase the efficiency of our grant process, a hundred-fold,â Waspi said. âWe make grants in here every single month in excess of this for one single event. I have absolutely no problem with this ask.â
Tourism Commission member Catherine Stoodley also agreed with awarding the $11,000 grant because the software would help the commission members make more informed decisions for awarding grants.
âIt is a minimal amount of money compared to the average grant that we look at, that we award,â Stoodley said. âFor what we do here, I truly think $11,000 is not that much money.â
After some discussion, the motion to award a $5,500 grant failed by a 4-2 vote with Fesenmaier and Pirzada voting âyes.â
Representatives from the Walworth County Visitors Bureau have offered the Placer.ai cooperative program during the past several months. About seven local agencies and businesses have decided to participate in the program, so far.
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