Tourism platforms

Salla Jokela and Paola Minoia discuss a form of Platform Urbanism (Chapter 16) that has emerged with peer-to-peer digital tourist platforms like Airbnb and resulted in the touristification of regions. Even though sustainable development promotes ecotourism as a way of integrating local livelihoods into transnational commerce and cultural exchange, this chapter illustrates how the movement of ‘external flows of people, capital, consumption—and narrations—into local areas’ rapidly transforms urban space and culture. The authors draw on case studies from Venice, Italy, and Helsinki, Finland, to illustrate these dynamics.