Nadel in einem Heuhaufen (Needle in a Haystack): Finding the German Locals in a Field of Tourists

By Josef-Konrad Radomski

MUNICH - Think of an area in your town that’s frequented by both tourists and daily commuters. It might be New York’s bustling Times Square, Chicago’s busy Sears Tower, or Montreal’s historical Old Port area. Now imagine you’ve been hired to interview 100 respondents in this area with a major catch - you’re budget is small so the amount of time you spend on site is limited, and your client only wants you to talk to the locals; no tourists can participate.

That’s the daily challenge faced by Ipsos in Munich, Germany. The full-service company’s interviewers collect data each day in the heart of this city’s Altstadt, or old town, in the busy Marienplatz square. While finding someone to talk to is not hard to find, it’s identifying who’s who that keeps these interviewers challenged.

This square is right in front of the late-Gothic Neues Rathaus (town hall). A place heavily frequented by tourists flocking to see its courtyards and gargoyle-adorned façade.

It’s also lined with department stores such as Kaufhof and Ludwig Beck that sell everything from electronics to the latest designer clothes, quaint cafés offering delicious pastries, and restaurants and beer gardens where both locals and tourists gather between 10 a.m. and noon to enjoy the traditional mid-morning snack of weisswurst, a white veal-based sausage that is usually served with a liter of wheat beer.

“It’s become very easy to identify who is who,” said an Ipsos field supervisor who was directing a team of five interviewers in this area. “The first give away is obviously the camera, and what they are wearing. Tourists usually don’t come here wearing a suit and tie. But identifying women, who are usually the shoppers and household heads we are after, is a little bit more difficult.”

Other visual clues include looking at what the potential respondents are looking at: are they gawking at the buildings, fascinated by the stores selling pewter beer mugs, or do they have a sense of direction and purpose in their stride?

The interviewers in this area also use auditory clues to help them pick their targets. If a couple is talking anything but German, they won’t approach them. But that doesn’t always guarantee a hit. This area of Munich is frequented by thousands of tourists daily, many of which come from other parts of Germany or Austria.

“Local Müncheners have a slight Bavarian accent, so that helps identify some people who live here,” the field supervisor said. “But Munich is also a becoming Germany’s new technological and cultural center. So many locals are transplanted here from other parts of Germany.”

Watching the field team working is an almost surreal experience. Armed with clipboards they wait, watch and listen, as they carefully select potential respondents out of the crowd. In just a 30-minute time block, one interviewer has approached six potential respondents, one of which was a tourist from nearby Augsburg.

“If we were in an area in the suburbs, say Gieselgasteig which is about 20 minutes away and where tourists don’t really visit, this job would be a lot easier,” the field supervisor said. “But we enjoy the challenge. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack a thousand times a week.”

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