Real-time market research analysis has arrived in Cape Town as a new company, Event Research International (ERI), aims to plug into what tourists, partygoers and consumers say think, feel, do and spend.
Market research surveys have traditionally been carried out by clipboard-wielding people who corner individuals for questioning, after which the clipboard data has to be transferred into an electronic format and analysed in order to create a report that can be presented to the customer.
"The traditional method is very time-consuming. Often the event that is being researched is long over before the analysis and reporting is completed, meaning the event sponsors and organisers have had no time in which to take advantage of opportunities or change their methods to suit public demands," says Glen Thompson, founder and MD of ERI.
ERI was founded last year using Hewlett-Packard iPac personal digital assistants and specially designed software to survey, download, analyse and report data gathered at events in close to real-time. The results of the survey conducted during the day could be examined that evening, and the sponsors and organisers would have the data the next day.
"As events, which includes festivals, promotions, parties and corporate gatherings, grow more important, especially in a tourist-oriented economy such as Cape Town`s, then the importance of such data and its timely use is critical," Thompson says.
He says the technology reduces the cycle time to report from collect, capture, analyse and report, to only capture and report, making it a lot more cost-effective and usable.
So far, ERI has researched the Hermanus Whale Festival, the Mother City Queer Project (MCQP) and during the last weekend of the Cape Town Festival.
The research showed that most tourists would happily pay a nominal amount to watch the Hermanus whales even from the shore, and that the MCQP brought about R7.9 million worth of tourist money into the Mother City last year.
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