Seven countries bid for 2036: what a Games delivers to its host
October 10, 2026
Hamburg, Rome and Budapest pulled out of the 2024 race. This time the field is full, and each bidder can build its case on what it has already hosted.
More than 700 events · 14m room nights · US$12bn GVA · 49 countries · 180 cities · in the past 12 months
Tourism economics blog.
[sà·gra]
Italian
A village festival marking a local event, held in the open with processions, stalls, and food. The day a place gathers to celebrate what it has.
A food festival, given over to one thing the region does well: the sagra del vino, the sagra delle castagne eaten in the Piazza.
A display of something in abundance, for anyone paying attention to see.
This is our long table: ideas, opinions and news about the visitor economy, and the events, places and decisions that shape it.
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A tourism asset grows on more than its growth story
September 9, 2026
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.
Ask a mayor, a tourism board, and a chamber what tourism is worth. Then give them one number they can all grow.
September 7, 2026
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.
More rooms, or a better pattern of demand? The market that answers grows both.
September 5, 2026
A hotel pipeline decision is usually made on an occupancy trend, extrapolated forward. That answers a different question from the one a planner, a developer, or an investor faces: is the market short of rooms overall, or short of rooms on the 18 nights a year when demand peaks?
- A blog about travel, development, and the economy
Major events and the people who live there: the case that wins both
August 28, 2026
A major event is a rallying point for civic pride, and just as easily a rallying point for protest. The difference is usually whether residents can see what the event does for their street, in terms they recognise, before the road closures start.
The other 300 days are the upside of every sports venue
August 26, 2026
A race track, an arena, a stadium: each is built for a peak it reaches a few dozen times a year. The gap between peak and off-peak operational need is the commercial challenge behind every sports-anchored development, and the reason mixed use is the answer rather than the fashion.
A 100,000-seat stadium: build one fewer seat than you can sell, and the district around it
August 24, 2026
Manchester United’s proposed stadium is a £2bn, 100,000-seat ground by Foster + Partners, with a target opening of 2030-31. The club and the regeneration case cite £7.3bn a year for the economy and 92,000 jobs. Those are the promoters’ projections. Here is what to test before believing them.
Chicago’s 1901 Project: an arena district built to grow around 200 nights a year
August 22, 2026
The owners of the Bulls and the Blackhawks are putting a reported US$7bn into 55 acres around the United Center: housing, a music hall, a hotel, retail, a park. The arena already hosts more than 200 events a year. The question a developer should ask is what the other 165 nights are worth.
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Advancing the Tourism Industry
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- The test was the World Cup
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