Wednesday, March 25, 2026
www.thepapersonline.com
Serving Kosciusko County and parts of Elkhart, Marshall & Noble Counties
Know Your Neighbor . . . . . 2➤ Entertainment . . . . . . . . .6 & 7
Vol. 55, No. 39
Milford (574) 658-4111 • Warsaw (574) 269-2932 • Syracuse (574) 457-3666
Placer.ai
helps Visitors Bureau track tourism By ABBY OLIVER Staff Writer The Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau, or KCCVB, has begun using Placer .ai to better understand visitor statistics for the county . Placer .ai is a vendor that was originally created for municipalities to track the demographics of their residents or employees . However, the KCCVB has found value in using it to track how many visitors come to the county and what they do while they’re here . “A lot of the time, knowing the number of visitors is a subjective number, especially because . . . our community offers free events,” said Cori Humes, executive director of the KCCVB . She explained there was no “true way” to determine the number of visitors to the county besides ticketed events . Funding for Placer .ai became possible as a result of a grant from the Kosciusko County Convention, Recreation & Visitors Commission . The commission provides funding to tourism and marketing nonprofits that request it . Placer .ai has changed how the KCCVB collects data from visitors . “We know how many visitors are coming to events, the county and every community as a way that we can market better,” Humes said . “That is important to us .”
Placer .ai collects information from apps within each resident’s cell phone and combines it into “aggregated anonymized location data,” or information about people’s geographic locations that has been combined and stripped of identifying details . This information is then compiled into statistics . Information the platform collects includes visitation to any Kosciusko County attraction or destination, home locations for visitors and routes to destinations, and visitor preferences for hotels, entertainment, dining, retail and leisure . Humes said Placer .ai is useful for its many applications . Not only can the software collect data about visitors in the county as a whole, but it can also triangulate how many visitors attend a single event . It can do that for residents of the county, too . As a result of the digital tool, the KCCVB now knows the county is “averaging higher in overnights vs . day trippers,” Humes said, meaning more visitors stay overnight rather than visit for the day . This data allows the KCCVB to make informed decisions about which markets to dedicate more time and resources to . Contrary to what some might think, Placer .ai is not a live tracker . Data cannot be traced back to any individual person, and there are certain protec-
114 W. Market, Warsaw, Indiana 46580
PLACER.AI DEMO — Cori Humes, executive director of the Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau, demonstrates Placer.ai on her computer. Photo by Abby Oliver.
tions in place . Anyone under the age of 18 cannot be tracked, and privacy parameters prevent information from churches and schools from being tracked . Events within these locations cannot be found using the platform’s data . Additionally, the KCCVB cannot access this aggregated anonymized location data until three days after it has been recorded . If someone were to ask the platform to track an event’s attendance or a person’s location in real time, that information would not be accessible . While it is useful for the KCCVB, Humes also encourages the community to take advantage of this software . “It is a tool for anyone,” Humes said . “If someone wanted to reach out to me and needed information - a lot of our nonprofits, a lot of our attractions, festivals and events, cities and towns - we’re happy to be able to produce those reports for them .” As the KCCVB enters its second year using Placer .ai, the software continues to improve . “The platform is evolving to provide different, helpful data,” Humes said . “We love to know where visitors are coming from .” She said she is excited to see how the software will be used to help the community prosper .