Emery County Travel Bureau approves two‑year agreement with Placer AI for visitor analytics

The Emery County Travel Bureau voted Oct. 14, 2025, to approve a two‑year software agreement with location‑analytics firm Placer (Placer AI) to provide visitation, trade‑area and event analysis for Emery County and its communities.

Placer product specialist Chris, who led the presentation, described the platform as a location‑analytics system built from anonymized mobile‑app location data. "We study the locations of millions of cell phones all across The United States," he said, and stressed Placer’s privacy posture: "We take privacy very seriously. We wouldn't be working with over, like, 2,000 communities if their constituents thought that we were, you know, tracking them." In a demonstration, Chris showed a Melon Days report that Placer reported as "9,900 visits to this park from 8,700 unique visitors." He also showed county‑level figures that Placer characterized as roughly 264,000 overnight tourists in Emery County over the past 12 months.

Board members said the data could help the bureau quantify event attendance beyond paper surveys and better target marketing dollars to ZIP‑code markets that produce the most visitors. One board member said the tool could help determine whether event attendees stay overnight, shop locally or travel on to other destinations — information the board said would aid decisions on which events to fund.

Pricing discussed during the meeting listed a single‑year option at $13,750 and a two‑year option with year‑one at $12,000 and year‑two at $13,000; Placer said multiyear contracts include a budget‑failure clause. Chris said the county’s emery.utah.gov email domain could be used to provision unlimited logins for county staff, while third parties such as chambers could receive exported reports rather than direct access.

After follow‑up questions on dwell‑time filtering, demographic inferences and export/sharing controls, Board Member Lacey moved to approve a two‑year agreement with Placer AI; the motion was seconded and passed on a roll‑call vote with Larry, Lacey, Terry, Maria and Ren recorded as 'aye.' Staff said the county attorney would receive Placer’s single‑source agreement and related documentation.

What happens next: staff will circulate the contract and a single‑source explanation to the county attorney for review and will schedule onboarding if the county attorney clears the agreement.

Quotes from the meeting: "We study the locations of millions of cell phones all across The United States," — Chris, Placer product specialist "We take privacy very seriously," — Chris, Placer product specialist "I make a motion to approve a 2 year agreement with Placer AI," — Lacey (motion)

Ending: The board approved the two‑year Placer AI agreement by roll call and directed staff to share the vendor documentation with the county attorney before finalizing the contract.