Workation destinations: ‘re-imaging’ tourism cities for digital nomads

This study highlights digital nomads and mobile remote professionals as a new target in tourism marketing strategies by analysing how three mature Spanish tourism destinations—Barcelona, Malaga, and Benidorm—promote themselves in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on qualitative analysis of multi-source empirical data, the article examines how urban marketing ‘re-images’ the tourism city for mobile remote professionals: what kind of attractions it highlights, the ideal visitors it aims to attract, and why these strategies are pursued despite often controversial social dynamics in mature tourism destinations. We argue that tourism marketing discourses reconfigure cities to promote them as new hybrid destinations merging work and leisure, and use the concept of workation destinations as a conceptual tool to grasp these transformations. The study presents three main findings: workation destinations are remarkably similar in their assets, services, and added value, emphasising ‘plug-and-play’ elements that allow mobile remote professionals to integrate smoothly and quickly; tourism marketing discourses are closely linked to broader talent attraction strategies, aiming not only to draw these professionals as visitors but also to retain them as affluent, highly skilled residents, linking tourism and migration into a continuum; digital nomads are targeted as an emerging aspirational ‘quality’ segment, even though marketing strategies struggle to effectively reach them. By exploring city re-imaging, the study offers empirical insights that extend the understanding of digital nomadism as a distinctive category and contribute to broader debates on the tourism city in the neoliberal age.