Living Lab’s first economic model was for the Singapore Grand Prix in 2012. In 2025 we became a software platform: government-grade intelligence for the visitor economy
Tourism economic leakage. Living Lab connects the observable signals, event, accommodation, price, and transaction data, with modelled shares for the procurement records and ownership structures that are not, and states clearly which is which, so the leakage figure is defensible rather than a national multiplier or an anecdote. Reference data is published by UN Tourism.
Measures where visitor spend currently leaves the local economy: a leakage rate by spend category, not a single local-multiplier figure. Which businesses and channels keep more value local. Whether a proposed development strengthens or bypasses the local economy, on ownership, procurement, and labour sourcing. Signal137 is the structural account a supply-chain intervention is targeted from.
Tests the intervention once it is under design: what a local procurement incentive, an ownership condition, or growth in the two or three sectors that import the most would do to retention. On an illustrative US$20bn economy, five points of retention is US$1bn a year, from the same visitors. Demand137 shows where the five points come from before the policy is signed.
| Product | Your question | You get | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signal137 | Where to target a local supply-chain or procurement intervention | A leakage rate by spend category: accommodation, food and drink, retail, transport | Support directed to the categories where retention is low and addressable |
| Signal137 | Does the proposed development strengthen or bypass the local economy? | Ownership structure, procurement pattern, and labour sourcing, modelled against comparable assets | Retained-value conditions attached to approval, incentive, or consent |
| Signal137 | How much leaves through booking and distribution channels? | The share of spend leaving through commission, payment processing, and platform fees | Channel leakage seen as addressable, not misread as a marketing problem |
| Signal137 | How is leakage different from displacement or deadweight? | Measured separately: value that enters and leaves, demand that moves, activity that would have happened anyway | The three are never netted into a single adjustment |
| Signal137 | Can you measure leakage without a company's accounts? | Most category-level data is observable; ownership and procurement shares are modelled and stated as such | Modelled is never presented as observed |
| Signal137 | Does reducing leakage mean discouraging foreign investment? | No. The evidence targets weak, addressable linkage, such as procurement and workforce sourcing | Several externally owned operators retain more local value than domestic comparators, once examined |
| Signal137 | Which town paid for the event, and which town kept the value? | Retained value by place, with the leakage to the next city named | The Monza question answered before the next race |
| Demand137 | Which sectors should we grow so more of the value stays? | The sectors where retention gains are largest, ranked | Industrial policy and tourism policy point the same way |
| Demand137 | What is five points of retention worth, and where does it come from? | Retention modelled under sequencing, procurement, licensing, and sector-growth options | The size of the prize stated, and the levers that reach it |
| Both | Who holds this, and where? | Model, data, and a trained team inside your jurisdiction | The capability survives the change of official or consultant |
A hotel, a resort, or a mixed-use scheme fails underwriting when a single route, a single annual event, or a single source market turns out to be carrying more of the demand case than the committee realised. The dependency is the risk, and it can be measured before signature.
None of the three states what it includes, what period it covers, or whether the money stayed. A footprint figure is only useful when it carries its own definitions, and it is only defensible when it is kept separate from impact.
International arrivals to the United States fell 4.2% in 2025 while worldwide travel grew about 4%. Living Lab’s displacement model puts the forgone spending at roughly US$50bn, and about US$10.6bn of it within reach of five economies. Each is limited by a different constraint.
At the Italian Grand Prix, the fleet of guest vehicles arrives on German plates with German drivers. The hospitality guests do not sleep in Monza, which hosts the race. They sleep in Milan, which does not. The town that pays captures a fraction of what the event generates.
Tourism is close to a tenth of the world’s output and employment, and almost every government still plans it in pieces. A country that governs its visitor economy as one system keeps more of what it pays for. On an illustrative US$20bn economy, five points of retention is US$1bn a year.
We turn messy event and tourism data into decisions that help communities grow. Bring curiosity and rigour. We will hand you questions nobody has answered yet.
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