Reflections on Digital Nomadism in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Effect of Policy and Place

Abstract

To the extent that digital capitalism and globalization processes have been developing, the arrival of digital nomads has grown in Spain. With the pandemic, this mobility was affected to a lesser magnitude than other types of flow. In this context, this paper deals with the study of the characteristics of digital nomads and the policies developed to attract them during the health crisis. With these objectives, the research, in relation to digital nomads, has been carried out based on the analysis of different virtual platforms, social networks, portals of collaborative workspaces and specialized events. At the same time, with respect to policies, the study has been focused on visa policy and on the actions developed by destinations to boost this type of mobility. The results obtained indicate, on the one hand, that it is not a flow of privileged people but a mobility like that of tourism related to the difference in international income. On the other hand, these results point out that the consolidation of digital nomadism during the pandemic is associated to tourism policies carried out by destinations, actions that have not valued the lack of sustainability of digital nomadism.

سائحو البداوة الرقمية في المقصد السياحي المصري: الدوافع والتحديات

“…Most of them are single, male, European, and have IT-related jobs. These results came to agree with several previous studies (e.g., Reichenberger, 2018;Thompson, 2018;Cook, 2020;Parreño-Castellano et al, 2022), which referred to the fact that the majority of digital nomads are single, male, Millennials or Generation Z, from the Global North, and working in digital professions like software engineers, bloggers, programmers, web designers, travel vloggers, etc. According to Šímová (2023), millennials find working with modern technologies to be far simpler because they have been surrounded by them since childhood.…”

“…The opposite is true for digital nomads, who travel and work all year as part of their lifestyle and only come home for brief vacations (for example, to spend Christmas with family). As summarized by Parreño-Castellano et al (2022), the digital nomadism phenomenon was developed as a result of different reasons, such as: the advancement of transportable computing and communication devices, as well as internet-based worldwide connectivity; the application of work organisation models based on goals or duties that don't need physical presence in a workplace and support remote work and flexible scheduling; reducing obstacles to people's travel, temporary lodging; and the growth of transportation and connection. In a similar vein, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated the rapid development of digital nomadism phenomena (Almeida & Belezas, 2022;Ehn et al, 2022).…”

“…Generally, they are highly educated professionals, selfemployed with a moderate income, and working in different professions like digital marketers, software engineers, financial traders, bloggers, programmers, web designers, journalists, travel vloggers, life coaches, teaching language remotely, podcasting, etc. (Reichenberger, 2018;Thompson, 2018;Parreño-Castellano et al, 2022). Typically, they prefer traveling to warm destinations with affordable living expenses.…”