In Milan, more tourism does not mean lower quality of life: in some districts, the opposite is true

Revealed by the first integrated white paper on overtourism and urban perception in the Lombard capital, produced by The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group and Doxa. The study stems from a collaboration launched in June 2024 with the aim of analysing and understanding, through both objective data and residents’ perceptions, the impact of overtourism in urban contexts.

The data collected – combining more than 130 digital sources analysed by The Data Appeal Company and a structured survey conducted by Doxa on a representative sample of over 500 residents – outline an urban geography made up of diverse and evolving balances.

Mirko Lalli, CEO and founder of The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group, highlights: “This project stems from the need to observe urban tourism in a more nuanced and realistic way. The correlation between tourism and quality of life is not automatic and can vary from neighbourhood to neighbourhood: to understand it, we need data, effective technologies, context and listening to local communities. The model we have adopted integrates objective analyses with residents’ perceptions and aims to serve as an operational tool for administrations and policy makers. It is a replicable approach, designed to adapt to different cities today and in the years to come, in a context where managing tourist flows will increasingly be central to urban balance.”

Susanna De Luca, Senior Research Manager at Doxa, adds: “Being part of this project has been a valuable opportunity for us to introduce diverse and complementary approaches, integrating – alongside quantitative analyses and Data Appeal’s findings presented in the paper – qualitative interviews with residents and web listening activities. We wanted to observe the phenomenon from multiple perspectives, combining objective data and subjective voices, and capturing what residents truly think or express online, often critically and directly. Beyond methodological innovation, the real achievement was to challenge a dominant and often oversimplified narrative on overtourism: in Milan, at least in some districts, tourism is not seen as an obstacle, but as an element that coexists, sometimes virtuously, with urban quality of life.”