GroundZones vs Mapline for zoning airport hotels

Mapline sells enterprise mapping for businesses that want geographic analysis without GIS expertise. Around its maps it adds route optimization, charts and dashboards, forms, electronic signatures, email and texting, and scheduling.

It can do the core of hotel zoning. You paste the hotel list from a spreadsheet, add a distance and drive time column measured to a specific address such as the airport, build territories by drawing them or from states, counties and postal codes, and have each territory name written into the pin data. The dataset downloads as an XLS file.

In Mapline the job is set up like any other map. You choose the address to measure from, add the distance column, turn your zone scheme into territories, and download the dataset. If your zones are driving-distance bands, the distance column gives each hotel its mileage, and the zone is read off that number.

In GroundZones the setup is the product. The airport is a code, the distance is measured from the terminal, and a distance band is itself a zone rule: set 0 to 5 miles as Zone 1 and every hotel in that band is assigned. Areas work the same way from ZIP codes, cities or a polygon you draw, and the result goes back into the file in the columns it arrived with.

Everything in GroundZones exists for the hotel file, including the parts that only matter the second and third time you zone the same airport.

• The origin is the airport terminal, from 9,055 airports chosen by IATA code, so there is no address to pick or get wrong
• Each hotel is geocoded and checked against its own address, and pins that could not be confirmed are marked on the map
• Zone rules can be previewed before they change the file, with conflicts between rules shown
• A new hotel list merges into the file you already zoned, with duplicates skipped, and up to 50 earlier versions can be restored
• The export is the hotel file you uploaded, in its own columns, with the zone filled in
• Unlimited users on every plan: colleagues join as admins, members who edit, or viewers who only look, at no extra cost

Mapline has a free Starter plan. Its paid plans, Mapline, Mapline Pro and Mapline Enterprise, show a Contact Sales button rather than a price.

GroundZones publishes its price: $75 a month for one airport and $22 for each additional airport, never more than $249 a month for up to 50 airports, or ten months of that paid yearly, with unlimited users on every plan. Every account starts with a 30-day free trial with no card, so an operator can see the whole bill before talking to anyone.