Visitors Bureau asks county to share $33,250 Placer AI subscription to boost data-driven planning

The Johnston County Visitors Bureau asked the Board of Commissioners to contribute $33,250 toward an annual Placer AI subscription that would be shared with municipalities and tourism partners.

"It's like a Google Analytics for the real world," said Aaron Mullen, the Visitors Bureau director, describing how anonymous, aggregated location data can show where visitors come from, how long they stay and where they spend money. Marketing and communications lead Ashb Bram explained the Bureau negotiated a bundled price to add spending-data capability and wants county participation for a shared license to support economic-development decisions, parks planning and grant applications.

Bram said the annual fee would be $66,500; the Bureau proposed splitting that cost across partners so the county share would be $33,250 for FY26–27. Commissioners and staff discussed whether this would be a one‑time or recurring annual expense (it is annual) and how departments have already used Placer data for park and events planning. Board members supporting the request noted multiple county departments and towns have already found the tool valuable for practical questions such as boat-ramps, festival attendance and downtown traffic.

Next steps: staff and the Visitors Bureau will coordinate procurement and budgeting for the FY26–27 budget cycle and consider partnership cost-sharing with municipalities.