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Garden City analytics director: out-of-market visitors often stay longer here than in Dodge or Liberal
Summary
The city’s director of analytics presented new ‘out-of-market’ visitor data showing Garden City attracts proportionally more visiting customers who stay longer, and highlighted 10-, 45- and 90-minute thresholds to evaluate retail and restaurant capture.
Shannon, the city’s director of analytics, presented newly available city-level visitor data and comparisons with Dodge City and Liberal, saying the platform can distinguish out-of-market visitors and visit durations and that Garden City often records more repeat visits and longer stays than peer towns.
“Out of market visitors… Garden City, we had 7 3 quarters of a million. 750,000 ish,” Shannon said when describing total visits under a 10‑minute threshold. She explained the platform lets analysts vary the minimum stop length and that a 10‑minute threshold often captures gas-station “pit stops.” “I said, well, how useful is knowing that somebody's stopping for 10 minutes? That's a gas station stop,” she said, and advised looking at 45‑ and 90‑minute thresholds for restaurant and retail capture.
Shannon summarized market behavior: Garden City has a higher share of visitors who drive to the city and make longer visits compared with Dodge City and Liberal. “For us in Garden City… 17% of those people are driving through Garden City. 74% of them people are driving to Garden City,” she said, arguing that a higher share of long‑stop visitors supports retail and restaurant performance in Garden City.
She also compared brand performance across the three markets, reporting that several chain locations in Garden City ranked “among the top” in the state for visits and that, for many brands common to all three cities, Garden City locations performed as well or better.
Why it matters: the data can inform decisions on where to site new businesses, how to target marketing to out‑of‑market visitors, and which visit‑length thresholds best indicate retail or restaurant capture.
Shannon said the platform can also break out visits by industry (motels, restaurants) and city-level granularity that was not previously available; she indicated staff will continue to analyze brand- and industry-level performance.
No formal action was taken; the presentation was received for information.
