Tourism

Measuring the visitor's economy

Tourism has changed in recent years brought about by low-cost flights and peer-to-peer online accomodation platforms. In turn, the economic sector and cities have been transformed. Given this new paradigm, it is crucial to analyze how tourism is transforming the urban landscape and kick-starting gentrification processes through the visitor's economy.
We have developed strategies to measure and visualise from multiple perspectives (movements, main attractors, sustainability, etc.) as well as reports and dissemination projects to open up the debate about the consequences of the visitor's economy.

Commerce

Retail as a urban service

Commercial activity is a fundamental pillar when it comes to shaping the image and social control of public space. Commerce offers goods and services to residents and visitors. It is also a driver of development (generating individual and collective benefits) and fosters a sense of belonging among the inhabitants of many urban areas.

The transition from the retail model toward the acquisition of services, along with the advent of e-commerce and the visitor economy, is transforming the street level in many cities and questioning the values of the proximity-based model.

We have collaborated with local authorities to create data collection strategies, data observatories and performance indicators regarding economic activities. We have drafted public policies that regulate either business implementation and promotion.

Innovation

Fostering economy inside the city

With the introduction of digitization into production, we are consolidating not only the decentralization of workplaces, but also their spread into multiple nodes. As a result, the work ecosystem needs attractive areas for company headquarters and representative spaces, but it also needs co-working spaces that allow for teleworking and the expansion of companies that are just starting out, as well as home offices.
The common element among these complementary productive formats is the existing city: today economy is going to be developed inside the urban fabric -abandoning the traditional sites located in the industrial peripheries.

We should seize on this moment of transformational change by inventorying the network of spaces and the multiple actors (companies, emergent activities, research facilities and knowledge infrastructures) that shape the innovation ecosystem. The real capacity of these spaces to create synergies, links and communities will go through their symbolic value but also through proximity and transference to the urban milieu.
Engaged with better cities