How accurately is the number of vacationers commonly used as a standard in the news calculated?

Until now, the counting of beachgoers at Busan's beaches, known as the "mecca" of domestic beaches, has been a subject of controversy. However, this controversy is expected to be resolved as Haeundae District has decided to count visitors starting this year using big data analysis techniques based on mobile phone location data.

SK Telecom and Nexen Information Technology (CEO Lee Young-sun) used smartphone location data to investigate the number of vacationers at Haeundae and Songjeong beaches and supplied the data to Haeundae-gu, Busan. According to this information, the number of vacationers at Haeundae and Songjeong beaches during the first weekend of the peak vacation season, from July 28 to 30, was tallied at 671,030.

SK Telecom has applied a big data analysis system that counts the number of beachgoers based on smartphone locations within mobile base stations to Haeundae and Songjeong beaches in Busan for the first time, and its applications are expected to expand in the future to areas such as real-time traffic management and disaster response.

Until now, beaches have counted visitors using the Fermi method (a method that estimates the total number of visitors based on the number of people per unit area), but the possibility of error has been pointed out repeatedly because this method is based on the number of visitors at specific times. The calculation method used this time utilizes mobile communication base station cells around Haeundae to divide Haeundae Beach into a grid based on a 50m x 50m standard, and measures based on the signal strength of the mobile communication base stations reaching each space. In other words, it is a method of measuring the number of mobile phones within the boundaries of Haeundae Beach by dividing the radio wave range of the area into small segments.

670,000 Visitors to Haeundae and Songjeong Beaches on the First Weekend of Peak Vacation Season

The survey is conducted on visitors staying for 30 minutes or more within the boundaries of Haeundae Beach, and is calculated by applying market share by telecommunications carrier, the power-off rate, and the rate of non-mobile phone owners. SK Telecom has been compiling the number of visitors since June 1, when Haeundae and Songjeong Beaches opened, and delivering the data to the Haeundae District Office in Busan. The total number of visitors from June 1 to July 31 was recorded as 2,696,845 (cumulative).

It is also possible to analyze the data by time of day. Between the 28th and 30th of last month, the peak time for vacationers was between 7 PM and 8 PM. An average of 57,767 people stayed in Haeundae at 7 PM, while an average of 57,363 people did so at 8 PM. The fact that there are more visitors to Haeundae at night than during the day appears to be due to the fact that, in addition to those enjoying swimming, many people spend time at night having dinner in the surrounding area or at food stalls and seafood restaurants near the beach. By age group, the 40–59 age range was the most prevalent during the peak season, indicating that family groups constituted the majority of vacationers. In contrast, the 20 to 39 age group accounted for the largest share during the off-season in July.

Busan City explained that based on these daily visitor counts, it can streamline not only festival analysis but also CCTV location analysis, foreign visitor analysis, public transportation demand analysis, and the deployment of security and emergency rescue personnel. Furthermore, the city explained that in the event of a disaster, it enables efficient disaster response by allowing for an accurate determination of the actual population size within the affected area.

Furthermore, location-based big data analysis is being utilized not only in the public sector but also in general companies for sales estimation, location analysis, store strategy, and target marketing, and is increasingly being used as data for startup business ideas or commercial area analysis for prospective entrepreneurs.