Key Highlights & Conclusions

– Work as a lifestyle and identity: Digital nomads prioritise meaningful, autonomous and flexible work over traditional corporate careers. Professional and personal lives increasingly overlap, with work remaining central to their identity.

– Coworking spaces as facilitators: Beyond providing workplaces, coworking spaces foster social connections, accelerate integration into new destinations and offer access to local knowledge, services and professional networks.

– The emergence of the worker-tourist: Digital nomadism blurs the boundaries between working, travelling and living, introducing new patterns of mobility, consumption and urban transformation.

– Growing pressure on housing markets: Digital nomads’ greater purchasing power can increase rental prices and contribute to transnational gentrification, making housing less affordable for local residents.

– Tourism beyond traditional seasons: Digital nomads extend tourism activity into the off-season, creating economic opportunities but also intensifying touristification and pressure on local communities.

– Precarious employment and economic dependence: Tourism-oriented economies increasingly rely on seasonal, fragmented and platform-based jobs, often characterised by limited employment protection and bargaining power.

– Transformation of local economies: Businesses serving residents are increasingly replaced by tourism-oriented establishments, while reduced investment in other sectors can contribute to underemployment and the departure of skilled professionals.

– Entrepreneurship and social capital: Some digital nomads establish businesses and initiatives that enrich local communities, introduce innovative ideas and promote more environmentally sustainable practices.

– Demand for greener and more liveable cities: Digital nomads can encourage improvements in green spaces, sustainable mobility and local infrastructure, potentially creating common interests with local residents.

Main takeaway:

Digital nomadism creates opportunities for entrepreneurship, social connections and sustainable innovation, but also intensifies housing pressures, touristification and labour precarity. Its long-term benefits depend on balancing the interests of mobile workers with those of local communities.