Visit Lafayette West Lafayette asked the Tippecanoe County Council on Jan. 13 to use innkeepers' tax dollars to cover the second year of a three-year subscription to Placer AI, an analytics service the organization says estimates visitor counts, origins and behavior from aggregated geolocation data. The presentation was led by Joe Wade and Justina Brown Walter, who described uses ranging from event attendance estimates to marketing validation.

"In one sentence, Placer AI is a geolocation platform," Justina Brown Walter said, describing how the company aggregates movement data from a panel of devices and estimates demographics from home-location patterns and census data. She said Visit Lafayette is asking the county for $32,500 to cover the subscription for 2026 and that the original contract was signed March 18, 2025.

Jennifer, the county auditor, noted that the request would be handled by resolution and said staff would place that resolution on the council’s February agenda for a formal vote. Council members pressed presenters on how Placer AI collects and estimates demographic information, the limits of point-of-interest (POI) boundary precision and known gaps when cell coverage is weak, such as at large outdoor events. Justina acknowledged the data are estimates tied to a panel of devices and proprietary app signals and cautioned that the platform should be used for strategic planning rather than as definitive counts.

Supporters from Greater Lafayette Commerce and other partners have already asked Visit Lafayette for reports, the presenters said. The council did not approve funding at the Jan. 13 meeting; instead, members directed staff to draft and place a resolution on the February agenda for a formal vote.

The council will consider the formal resolution in February; Visit Lafayette representatives said the subscription payment deadline is March 18.