At Foursquare, our data scientists are often called upon to analyze real world trends; we use big data to determine how commercial fortunes are rising or falling. This year, politics and business are intersecting, as one of the presidential candidates, Donald Trump, has extensive properties including casinos, hotels, and golf courses. Has his campaign been good for Trump-branded business?
We have experience tackling these types of questions with a high degree of accuracy. Based on our foot traffic intelligence covering over 50 million users a month, we predicted Apple iPhone 6s sales, a hit Q4 for McDonald's all-day breakfast, and a tough Q1 for Chipotle. Time and again, our predictions have been proven on-target once these companies announced their earnings.
Reporters have lately been asking us if our foot traffic data can shed light on visits to Trump properties, so we decided to take a closer look. To be clear, as a technology company, we're not in the game of taking a stance on political questions. But we are interested in the power of data to illuminate cultural trends. So let's look at the numbers.
Have The Donald’s politics trumped Trump businesses?
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There has been an interesting arc over the last year. Before Trump announced his presidential bid, foot traffic to his properties was steady year-over-year — and maybe even saw a small uptick. After he entered the race, his branded properties failed to get their usual summertime traffic gains. In August 2015, the share of people coming to all Trump-branded properties was down 17% from the year before.
These losses stabilized to single digits for a number of months, but as primary voting season hit full swing in March 2016, share losses grew again. Trump properties did not get their usual springtime bounce of travelers and locals. March share was down 17% once more.
The properties that were hardest hit were the Trump SoHo, Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago and Trump Taj Mahal, down 17–24% in raw foot traffic this past year as compared to the previous year. Incidentally, Trump Taj Mahal on Wednesday announced that it will beclosing its doors after Labor Day, citing an ongoing employee strike as the reason; our foot traffic report shows the problems ran deeper.
We also decided to look at how foot traffic might differ between "blue state" and "red state" locations. Trump properties include a number of award-winning hotels (particularly Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago). However, his hotels, casinos, and golf courses are mainly located in reliably "blue" Democratic states, and depend highly on guests and visitors who live in the region.
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Breaking out Blue States, the loss in foot traffic runs deeper than the national average. For the past five months, Trump's blue state properties — spread between New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii — have taken a real dip, with diminishing visits starting in March and a widening gap that continues straight through July, when share fell 20% versus July 2015.
