Tourism organizations using phone geolocation data to track visitor trends

As tourism rebounds, the issues about visitor management continue to be front and center. The Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority announced it is using geolocation data via a contract with location data company to track the recreational areas visitors and residents have been flocking to. Jennifer Chun, the director of HTA Tourism Research, said "One of the big reasons why we wanted to collect location data is to see how all our state resources and our county resources are being used. We've been working with the Department of Land and Natural Resources to put together a list of points of interest for parks and trail systems, and also for county parks and trails and beaches, to try and see how these assets are being utilized." She says geolocation data comes from phone applications that use location services such as Yelp and Instagram. The HTA says the data is anonymous and individual devices cannot be identified.