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
City tourism impact assessment. Living Lab measures the visitor economy at the geography a council decision needs, a district, a street, a specific development, and connects growth to the capacity and resident pressure that arrive with it. Reference data is published by the OECD.
Attributes what a past event, development, or policy change did to a district or the whole city: retained value, leakage, jobs, tax, and the housing and price movement alongside it. Reports on demand, on one method, so a festival and a hotel approval read on the same terms. Evidence a council can present and be questioned on.
Tests an upcoming decision before it is committed: an event bid, a hotel pipeline, a short-term rental rule, a capacity intervention. Demand by origin, timing, and purpose against what each district can absorb. Base, downside, and supported cases with the counterfactual stated, so growth lands where the place has room.
| Product | Your question | You get | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demand137 | Where to concentrate or spread visitor demand across districts | Place-level demand and capacity, not a citywide average | Events and marketing go where the place can absorb them |
| Demand137 | Whether a new event, venue, or development is worth the disruption | A public value case stating cost, return, and displacement at district level | A funding position the council can hold under scrutiny |
| Demand137 | When capacity pressure will bite, and where | Forward demand and pricing signals for hotels and short-term rentals, by area | Room to act on licensing or capacity ahead of the peak, not after the complaints |
| Demand137 | What a short-term rental rule would do to the district | The yield, displacement, and fiscal effect of each licensing level | Rules tested against the system before they are signed |
| Demand137 | What happens if we do nothing? | Base, downside, and supported scenarios with a stated counterfactual | The cost of waiting is priced alongside the cost of acting |
| Signal137 | Is growth reaching the local economy, or leaking out of it? | Retained value by district and by sector, with the leakage named | A local benefit case built on the same evidence as the growth target |
| Signal137 | Which neighbourhoods are absorbing the pressure? | Event cadence, accommodation pressure, and resident sentiment, street by street | Growth and pressure weighed where they actually land |
| Signal137 | What did last year's calendar deliver, district by district? | Every event ranked on jobs, tax, GVA, and retained value, on one method | The events that pay back are supported, and the mix is optimised |
| Signal137 | What do I tell the council at year end? | Monthly, seasonal, and annual roll-ups across the whole place | One account of what the visitor economy delivered, not five departments' versions |
| Both | Who holds this, and where? | Model, data, and a trained team inside your jurisdiction | The capability survives the change of officer or consultant |
Oman has announced plans for a high-altitude destination at Jabal al Akhdar, combining sports training, wellness, and tourism at 2,400 metres. It is the kind of project a Gulf government can commit to at once, and the kind that lives or dies on a demand case nobody has yet published.
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 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.
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.
Hand a country that is losing visitors the largest sporting event ever held on its soil, and see whether the event can overcome the friction. It could not. Measured per hotel across 16 host markets, the 2026 World Cup delivered as a tournament and failed as a remedy.
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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