City Limits Volume Eight: Destination Cities

We’re careful right now not to label everything as post-pandemic. After all, for many the hardship goes on. But, in a way barely entertained for the last two years, actually travelling to another city is back in consideration. Meaning this felt the right time to turn the attention of City Limits less to the places we live in and more to those we visit.

And so Crowd DNA team have been busy making sense of the new-found appreciation of tourists that some cities are cultivating (distance makes the heart grow fonder). The refreshingly different types of relationship now forming between visitor and destination, often with sustainability as the guiding principle. Elsewhere, we follow the digital nomads to Dali, and pause to consider what Instagram and TikTok are doing to the way we explore. The home share trend gets a look over as well, as do some of the lamest places in Texas. And we send you postcards loaded with stories of traffic, pizza, cannabis, risking it all in 4x4s, and miscellaneous chocolate spreads.

While we start planning for volume nine of City Limits, we hope you enjoy everything we’ve packed into this one. And if you’d like to hear more about our own work in areas such as tourism, travel, hospitality and placemaking, we’d love to hear from you.

Check out the full pdf here.

Andy Crysell, Crowd DNA Founder

For a brief window in the summer of 2021, when museums were open but international travel was not, city dwellers found themselves ambling through the empty rooms of world-class galleries that normally pack in thousands of tourists a day. Without the crowds, the visitor experience improved dramatically. But now those days are gone (hopefully for good), what are the lasting effects of this eerie interlude?

The Great Localisation

2021 saw New Yorkers find themselves alone in one of the world’s most famous destination cities. Journalist Adam Sandbergh for the New York Times described a ‘glorious’ time where locals felt the city’s museums belonged to them. It was a summer when locals could rediscover a city they had learnt to love long ago and feared they’d lost. Visiting The Bronx Zoo felt, Sandbergh described, like ‘perambulating your own private nature reserve’. But, while many New Yorkers enjoyed this eerie interlude, they acknowledged its unsustainability.

This period of downtime awakened a newfound appreciation for tourists, the madness of their crowds, not to mention the revenue. At its peak in 2019, tourism brought in $80 billion dollars to the city’s economy. Covid has reminded residents that their destination cities were built to be seen by the world.

Visitor numbers aren’t expected to be back to 2019 levels until 2024, but for those who do go, they’ll find a Big Apple that’s changed. Alfresco dining has grown meteorically in New York, as it has in other cities, with over 10,000 new open air venues opening up.

The Association Of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) in London described 2021 as a ‘phenomenal’ year for culture, despite – but also because of – dramatic declines in the number of visitors. Londoners strengthened their bond to the cultural institutions of their city. This is predicted to boost local pride with an increased sense of ownership that will not only make the tourism industry more resilient in the future, but also more attractive to outsiders.

An Emergent Mutual Respect

The important thing for brands to know is that, while Covid was disastrous for the tourism industry, there is also a sense that what came before had been too much. Covid has been a chance to rebuild the industry with a greater sense of mutual respect between visitors and residents.

We’re seeing this being put into action most concretely in the wonderful destination city of Barcelona. In 2021, in an attempt to reduce the mass of tourists that asphyxiate the city centre, mayor Ada Colau effectively banned homeowners from renting out individual rooms on Airbnb. This was accompanied by a €21 million state grant for the transformation of commercial spaces into businesses catering for local needs. It’s not the policy you’d expect during the latter days of a pandemic that has shattered the economy…

But this is all part, paradoxically, of a drive to improve the experience of Barcelona for the tourists. A campaign was launched (in Catalan, Spanish and English), ‘Barcelona like never before’, that emphasised the city’s cleanliness and serenity, free from choking, midsummer crowds; essentials in the post-Covid appetite for space and ventilation. The council say this campaign is targeting ‘high quality tourists’, who are there to immerse themselves in local culture, rather than just drink and sunbathe.

Where before, tourism in Barcelona felt like an uncontrollable beast, an unstoppable cycle that saw rents soar and quality of life plummet, it is now seen as something that can be channelled and strategised.

The Flip Side

But will this tourism rebuild come at a cost for the average consumer? Potentially it will lead to destination cities like Barcelona becoming only accessible to wealthy tourists, as part of a wholesale premiumisation drive. Barcelona’s mayor admitted they’re after a different ‘class’ of tourist, wealthy visitors, whose spend is 30% higher than the average.

A similar strategy is in effect elsewhere. In an attempt to boost post-Covid recovery, the Japanese ministry of tourism has simplified legislation governing super yachts and private jets, with the hope of attracting some of the globe’s high-net-worth visitors. Iceland has made comparable steps. Indeed, some predict that wealthy millennials looking for luxury retreats to be the main driver of the tourism recovery in 2022 and beyond. The trend is heading away from ‘the more tourists the better’ to ‘deeper pockets, less tourists’.

Is Sustainable Travel A Myth? 

Sustainable travel is increasingly seen for what it most often is: a contradiction in terms. As Responsible Travel, a UK-based operator states, ‘the minute you switch on any engine, to get to the airport, ferry port or railway station, your sustainability metre starts ticking’. So what’s the solution? Stay put? Wait for the day we can WhatsApp our holograms to Rio and back?

While sustainable travel may be a 21st Century oxymoron, innovative destination cities can be powerful role models for green urban innovation, educating visitors in new modes of sustainable city living. Experiments in design, architecture, materials and infrastructure act as emissaries of a new era of responsibility, informing both our ways of travelling and living.

What Is Ecotourism?

The term ‘ecotourism’ is not new. It originated in the ‘80s as a reaction to a globalisation of the tourism industry that saw large resort-style developments bulldoze their way across Europe, the Americas and other popular holiday destinations. Fast-forward a few decades and ecotourism is now defined, according to the International Ecotourism Society, as ‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education’.

Here we spotlight three different destination cities, unpacking their ecotourism credentials. Not only are they fantastically enjoyable, sometimes luxurious, cities to visit, they contain inspiring ways of life that prioritise responsibility above all else.

Crowd DNA’s Judy Lei Boyd investigates the small Chinese destination city that digital nomads love to call home (for a bit…)

“Why we chose Dali? It’s the best place for digital nomads in China,” says Daniel Ng smiling from behind his desk. “Every big city is the same: you have the same streets, the same subways. But Dali is unique.”

In 2019, Ng and a group of friends rented a car and drove around southern China to find the perfect base. They moved from city to city, staying in each place for two or three weeks at a time. “We tried Quanzhou, Xiamen, Hainan, Guanlin, Chongqing and Chengdu. But the weather isn’t perfect there.”

Digital nomads are defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as people ‘who earn a living working online in various locations of their choosing’. Building a base for digital nomads seems somewhat conflicting, but that is exactly what Ng and his friends decided to do.

The project is called Dali Hub, a co-working and meeting space dedicated to the small, but growing community of digital nomads that have made Dali their (temporary) home. It comes complete with an attractive water feature, ping-pong table, drum kit, movie area and even a ballroom for parties. Its crisp white walls and minimalist kitchen decor would not be amiss in London’s Silicon Roundabout.

There were lots of factors that Ng and his friends had to consider. Good weather and scenery were an obvious must, as was the cost of living. But size and reputation were also important to them. “If the place is too small, there are not many choices for entertainment. You don’t have enough of the things that you want to enjoy,” he says. “And it also has to be well-known, so people will come.”

Some of those visitors decided to stay. By 2019, around 40,000 newcomers were living in Dali city. The ‘new Dali people’ are largely middle-income earners who were tired of urban life. >Some of them arrived as young families, others were artists or musicians who could no longer afford studio spaces. “The changes they brought were beautiful,” says Mei Zhang, founder of travel service, Wild China. “They appreciate the local architecture and bring out the beauty of Dali even more.”

At its busiest time, Dali Hub will have around 50 members using the space. “To be a digital nomad in China takes balls,” says Dora Sun, a vlogger and former Dali Hub member. “You need courage because you’re going against the grain of so many things. In Shenzhen and everywhere you get the sense that the economy is pushed by real estate. To live comfortably is nearly inconceivable in that kind of environment.”

There is a strong pressure to earn well, especially on men. Sun found there was a gender imbalance of 3:1 between female and male Chinese nomads in her circles: “It’s definitely easier to become a digital nomad as a woman, as it’s not as important to have a property.” You also need a certain access to affluence. Frankly, if you can’t afford to put food on the table you won’t be thinking about freedom, so you need to be super focused.” Most nomads return to city life after two or three months.

As the bars in Dali are emptying and the stores are closing down for the winter months, Daniel Ng and his group of digital nomads are also moving on. Their next destination is Hainan, the smallest and southernmost province of China. It’s an island famed for its sandy beaches and tropical climate. December temperatures hover around 28 degrees. Ng plans to return to Dali in spring. “We digital nomads are like wild birds – we just fly to where it’s warmer.”

The degree that social media has affected the world around us can’t be It shapes our aspirations and our social circles. This monumental shift is also changing cities and why we visit them.

The Place-Making Power Of The ‘Gram 

‘Doing it for the gram’ has grown for many to be an acceptable motivation for doing anything, even visiting a city. And where people used to travel to see the sights, now, with Instagram, many are travelling to be seen at them.

The trend gained notoriety in 2016, when an innocuous pool in one of Marrakech’s Riads started making headlines for the amount of selfies taken at it. The pool in question had gone viral after it being snapped endlessly on Instagram by holiday makers and influencers, prompting headlines in the press like: ‘It’s That Damn Pool Again!’ And consequently even more photos. Through the power of sharing, the hotel pool in Morocco became one of the city’s must-see attractions, visited by thousands, an essential destination.

The news bubble highlighted a shift in culture. For some travellers, the necessity of a city’s Instagramability ruled above all else. Before, cities had been Instagrammable by virtue of their significance in guide books. Now it was the social media influencers that made places.

Some cities have capitalised on this human desire. Walking tours with prefabbed photo opps sprung up. Airbnb offers a dropdown menu of photogenic options, including: ‘Windmills’, ‘Ryokans’ and ‘Campervans’. The Museum Of Ice Cream (New York) and The Colour Experience (Bradford, England) are famed for providing the perfect poppy backdrop. And exhibitions like the Tate’s Van Gogh were designed with shareability in mind.

Not all citizens are happy about their homes developing Instagram fame. Residents of some of the most naturally picturesque cities are frustrated by tourists flocking to their neighbourhoods for a photoshoot. Yet, with economies that rest heavily on tourism revenue, residents remain begrudgingly dependent on them. It is a sensitive tension to negotiate, one that might require unlikely solutions; could famous backdrops be created away from residents’ homes; maybe the next cultural destination is a venue that collects the city’s famous locations all in one place?

In search of sustainable alternatives to overtourism, Crowd DNA spoke to Emmaneul Arnaud, CEO of Home Exchange, the #1 home sharing site.

While Airbnb has hugely expanded the homestay and experiential possibilities of destination cities, it has also come under criticism – residents complain it is pricing out locals and swamping local culture. Alongside homestays, home sharing is a niche industry on the rise. As the name suggests, it’s a reciprocal system where sharing your home will open up opportunities to share globally. And, unlike Airbnb, it encourages travel while protecting the unique, local feel of a city.

So, is the bartering economy the way to save cities from the problems of ‘overtourism’?  Crowd DNA’s Freddie Mason caught up with CEO of Home Exchange, Emmaneul Arnaud, to find out…

Freddie: How does what you do compare to Airbnb or other holiday rental businesses?

Emmanuel: If you think about what Airbnb does to cities, what you have is tourists competing for real estate with the people who actually live there. Property owners can make a lot more money from their place in central New York or Paris renting it out to tourists who come and go, than you can from people who live in the city. Even if it means the place is empty half the time! But with home sharing, because there’s no money changing hands, there’s none of that competition going on. Nobody’s going to invest in a unit to transform it into a quasi-hotel. We don’t want to compete with the locals, we want to give the locals a chance to use their place to travel elsewhere. A kind reciprocity, a way to share our cities. We promote tourism that helps protect the cultures of cities. Airbnb can be very damaging to the culture of destination cities. Not all the time, of course. But it can be.

Freddie: That’s so interesting. And I’m sure the culture of sharing is different, too.

Emmanuel: Yeah, right. With us, the transactional relationship is more like the guest framework you were taught when you were a little kid, when you were told, you know, to share your toys. People are more straightforward as well about the reality of their home. I’d be more like: ‘you know, it’s not a palace, but I hope you have a nice stay’. And you’d be grateful, maybe you’d leave me a bottle of wine or a thank-you note. The whole framework of the relationship changes.

Freddie: I see. Basically you’re saying that your model not only nurtures the cultures of destination cities, it also produces a more empathetic culture between the users.

Emmanuel: That’s the idea, yeah. There’s this idea of overtourism – have you heard about that?

Freddie: A little…

Emmanuel: Overtourism refers to cities where the number of tourists goes beyond what that place is able to manage in a sustainable way. For instance, now there are 50,000 people who live in Venice, when 200 years ago there were something like 200,000. And millions of tourists visit Venice every year. Eventually, the balance between the people coming to the place, and the people living there reaches a point where theren’t aren’t enough locals to make it real, authentic and vibrant anymore. That’s a risk we have. It’s not helped by Instagram telling us we all have to take this specific selfie in this specific spot.

Freddie: How do you compete with the likes of Airbnb? What’s the future for Home Exchange?

Emmanuel: We don’t compete with Airbnb. There’s just such an imbalance of scale, you can’t really talk about competition. But at some point, I hope, there’s going to be a tipping point where people, thanks to Airbnb, will be comfortable enough with a sharing economy, and used to sleeping in other peoples’ beds etc, that they’ll be willing to take that step and join Home Exchange instead. Which is a real sharing economy. While things are looking good, there’s also a lot of uncertainty. But the most important thing I have to say is this: the future of tourism is one that doesn’t compete with locals, finding ways to avoid that competition. This is what we’re trying to do.

City Limits asked the Crowd DNA team about their memorable moments from city trips and what they want to see from the future of destination cities. Here’s a selection…