Francesco Leoni, Massimo Bianchini, Stefano Maffei, and Francesco Zurlo
The paper presents an original methodology, called the “visitor journey”, for exploring the impact of a large-scale event on the urban environment.
This proposal was developed within a research project focused on the impact of Milan Design Week on the city of Milan, Italy. In this context, the visitor journey was implemented through its main steps—air and rail passenger flows, hospitality, urban mobility, public safety, and waste management—by using real-world urban data obtained through a data-centric collaboration with seven data holders at the city and regional levels. The results highlighted a twofold dimension of Milan Design Week’s impact on the Milan urban system: first, the event’s attractiveness for international business tourism and high-spending visitor profiles; and second, its peak and transversal effects on public transport and mobility services. Moving from both the potential and the limits of the visitor journey, we discuss this endeavour as a practice-based case study that shows a way to connect the permanent and temporary systems within a urban environment—namely, a city and the large events it hosts—through the notion an new perspective on events’ impact.
Keywords: Visitor Journey, Milan Design Week, Methodology, Impact Assessment, Event Management, Tourism Management