To say travel has been disrupted this year is perhaps something of an understatement.  While newspaper headlines have examined the travails of the tourism industry and the impact reductions in business travel is having on the sector, they are not the only group for whom travel restrictions have had a profound impact.

Digital nomadism was increasingly popular before the pandemic, with data suggesting nearly 5 million Americans identified as such.  Their situation has undoubtedly been complicated at a time when borders have been shutting and visa situations gumming up.

Barbados notably set out to entice digital nomads with its “Barbados Welcome Stamp”, which offers people the option of staying on the island and working remotely for up to a year.  The Barbadian government explained that the move was prompted by COVID-19, and especially the difficulties it presents to short-term visits due to the time-consuming nature of testing and the possibility of quarantines.

Tropical working

Nowhere is the appeal of working in such a tropical paradise more evident than in Yoko Village. The “co-work village” is situated in the beach-front town of Santa Teresa in Costa Rica, and aims to offer workers social, spiritual, and environmental fulfillment.

The co-working community currently consists of some 72 different nationalities, housed in 80 villas. The village contains a co-work center, communal garden, sports center, workshop, an alternative school, and a spiritual kitchen, with ready views of both the ocean and mountains to residents.

“In these most unusual of times, we wanted to create a space for people to fulfill their personal and spiritual needs of eco-living while maintaining the kind of professional and productive work environment that employers and employees alike require,” founder Liran Rosenfeld told me.

Such openness to digital nomads is increasingly common, especially among smaller nations.  In recent times, Bermuda, Estonia, and Georgia have all launched digital nomad visas, prompting not only a rethink about the nature of work and holidays but also citizenship itself.

Such moves are made in large part due to the inherent uncertainty surrounding the digital nomad lifestyle, with many returning to their homeland in the face of the pandemic after advice from their governments.  For many, things like travel insurance became problematic, but with remote work scarcely having been more popular, are we likely to see a similar boom in digital nomadism?

The rise in digital nomadism

While international travel is likely to remain difficult for the foreseeable future, the untethering of workers from a physical location is widely predicted to endure after the pandemic ends.  This has the potential to expand the market of digital nomads from the young, often freelance, workforce operating in fields such as design, coding, and media, and making it more accessible and available to a wider range of professions.

The pandemic has given many of us a glimpse of the nomadic lifestyle, albeit obviously without the travel.  There is also a shift underway in our attitude towards tourism.  City center locations have already suffered from the transition towards remote work, but there have also been growing concerns in many traditional tourist destinations about the impact short-term visitors were having.

Venice is perhaps the archetypal example of a destination that has been spoiled by excessive tourism, but many popular spots have seen a backlash against tourists by locals who wish to reclaim their area.

In Barcelona, for instance, the six-fold increase in tourists over the past 30 years has sparked a backlash as locals bemoan the Airbnb’s that crowd locals from popular areas, or the stag parties that pollute city streets, and the criminals and hawkers that tend to follow such crowds around. Despite the metropolitan nature of the city, tourism accounts for 15% of GDP and 9% of employment, so the bind is all too evident.

As the knowledge workers of the world not only get to grips with working remotely, but also have a growing ambition to conduct their work in greener and more pleasant environs, the potential for traditional tourist destinations to rebrand themselves as remote work destinations is all too evident.

Competing for citizens

Tsugio Makimoto, arguably the grandfather of digital nomadism, famously remarked that nation-states would ultimately end up competing for citizens as people become less tethered not only to physical locations but even to the very concept of nationhood itself.

Nationalism was experiencing a resurgence in the years leading up to the pandemic, and so such claims seem somewhat outlandish today, but with over-tourism making way to under-tourism as a result of the pandemic, there is likely to be intense competition for existing and future nomads from around the world.

While we have seen a number of employers announce that their workforce will be operating remotely for some time, there is still a likelihood that they expect that workforce to remain in the same country when they do so.  Obviously there’s no rational reason for that, so there is a strong prospect of those people who are working remotely for an extended period to adopt a nomadic lifestyle while they do so.