AI tech supports BID with data info
An organisation which is in place to make sure Nairn is an attractive place to do business, live and visit has invested in AI technology which can measure footfall to the town on any given day.
The investment will mean that Nairn Connects BID can understand footfall and visitor behaviour to the town centre and can also find information on behalf of its members so that they too can access data which may be useful to them for running their business.
The investment in Place Informatics, which is a leading provider of footfall and location visitor behaviour data will allow Nairn BID to have at its fingertips, crucial information on what has happened in the town on any day.
It will be able to view daily, weekly and monthly visitor numbers, monitor foot traffic patterns and understand where people go across streets, retail, car parks and green spaces, identify visitor demographics, and benchmark Nairn’s performance against neighbouring towns.
Nairn BID manager, Lucy Harding said:
“This is a fantastic piece of kit and will be very useful to proving the impact that Nairn BID has on an ongoing basis to the town.
“For example, Nairn BID stages three key events a year: Taste of Nairn, Wheels of Nairn and the Christmas Lights Switch on, plus two standalone Farmers’ markets.
“We are now able to access data from these events to ensure that they are driving footfall and doing exactly what it is we want them to do.
“The analytics of these events is so specific, and we can pinpoint hour by hour what is going on.
“We can see the peak and low times for visitors and it may be that using this data, we make changes to future events to ensure that we are maximising the potential for everyone involved.”
Data for Taste of Nairn 2023, which was held from April 28 to 30 shows that 27,702 people visited the town over the three days, an increase of eight per cent for the same event the previous year and an increase in footfall of 25 per cent compared with the month before.
Lucy added:
“The technology can also be used to help new businesses decide whether they want to set up shop in Nairn.
“We can help potential business owners decide what days of the week to open and what time of the day will have most footfall.
“It’s a nifty piece of kit.
“Nairn Connects BID, which was voted in by businesses in 2018 and is currently going through a renewal ballot, can also access information on how far people travel to come to key events such as the Nairn Farmers’ Show and The Nairn Highland Games.
“While we have known anecdotally for years that Nairn’s population swells during the summer, we will be able to tell everyone by how much in future.”
“Exciting stuff.”
