GARY BOWERMAN
Hello and welcome to the High Yield Tourism Podcast. I’m Gary Bowerman. On this week’s show, I’ll be discussing the evolution of digital nomadism and global mobility in travel with Milos Polucha. So let’s get started. This is High-Yield Tourism.

GARY BOWERMAN
Hello, and thanks for listening in. Today it’s my pleasure to welcome to the show Milos Polucha, co-founder of Destinova and an avowed digital nomad. Milos is a progressive advocate for remote work as a high-yield travel segment and speaks at various conferences and seminars around the world. He joins us today fresh from attending the annual Bansko Nomad Fest in Bulgaria. So Milos, thanks for coming on the show. How are you doing and where are you today?

MILOS POLUCHA
Thanks for having me, Gary. I’m doing very well. I’m currently in Slovakia, just coming from a two-week work trip from the biggest Nomad Fest in the world, from Bansko, Bulgaria, and from Armenia.

GARY BOWERMAN
Good, so whereabouts in Slovakia are you?

MILOS POLUCHA
I’m in Žilina. It’s the northern part of Slovakia. That’s where I’m originally from. So whenever I get an opportunity to stop by and spend some time with my family, I like to do it.

GARY BOWERMAN
It’s a beautiful country. We’ll come to the Bansko Fest in a minute. I want to talk about that. But let’s begin with a little bit of an introduction to yourself, Milos. You’re co-founder of Destinova. Can you tell us a bit more about what you do and who you do it with?

MILOS POLUCHA
Sure. So basically, the whole story of mine started like 10 years ago, when I would say that was the beginning of my nomadic journey. I started studying abroad and the nature of my university would be spending one year in every country, one year in Denmark, one year in Belgium, one year in the UK. So that naturally evolved then into some sort of digital nomadism or working remotely. And that slowly evolved into trying to build a co-living space, which is like this combination of co-working space plus lodging. So almost like a hostel for digital nomads, but where you have a community, where you have co-working and co-living space. And as we were doing that, we realized that there is a potential to help key stakeholders in tourism understand who digital nomads are. So we founded Destinova, which is a growth agency that helps tourism boards, national tourism offices, but also any travel brand that wants to prepare for the future and create growth strategies that cater to travelers like digital nomads or young travel segments like Gen Z or millennial travelers.

GARY BOWERMAN
Okay, that’s a great introduction. That sets up the conversation nicely. Let’s begin, Milos, with a kind of working definition of this segment. You there used, I think, two different terms, used digital nomads, used remote working. We also hear work from anywhere. These terms get used sort of interchangeably. So I’m wondering, does that help or does that hinder the debate? And how would you kind of define the travel segment that we’re going to be talking about today?

MILOS POLUCHA
So that’s a great question. Gary, because the term of digital nomad, some people think that it has been around just a few years, but this term actually comes from the 90s, which I believe was the first time when it was mentioned in this book. And people generally started to realize that anyone who is able to work because of the digital marketing or the digitalization of the world, anyone who is able to work remotely is a digital nomad. But currently, we are in the phase where we are trying to differentiate who the digital nomad is. and who the remote worker is and what is for instance so-called pleasure travel so the digital nomads are normally people who are for whom the travel is a lifestyle so for whom the travel is the ultimate priority and while their travel they’re able to work remotely while remote workers are more of a people who are living in one place based in one place living life like they normally do but they work remotely meaning that if they want to travel for a short period of time for one two weeks or a month leave their home they can and the travel is sort of like this combination where like maybe I am gonna go and fly for a work trip but i decide to prolong my stay because i can work remotely i get to prolong my stay the word of digital nomad has many different annotations and in a lot of different parts of the world people take this word differently whereas in Europe digital nomad is almost portrayed as an enemy and responsible for all the gentrification issues then the rising housing costs in places like Asia, especially in East Asia, in countries that are dealing with significant population loss, the digital nomad means someone that they want to bring in, someone that can help bring talent and more people into their countries. So currently the term of digital nomad is just being very vague and differently perceived across the different part of the world.

GARY BOWERMAN
That’s a good point. Yeah, I agree with that. Let’s talk a little bit very briefly about the Bansko Nomad Fest in Bulgaria, which took place, I think, a couple of weeks ago. It’s kind of like the Glastonbury, I guess, of nomads. I looked at their website, and they have a very good definition of the people that come to the event and who speak at the event. And they said they bring together people from around the world to share their expertise on entrepreneurship, remote work, AI, global mobility, and financial freedom. How do you think about that as a definition?

MILOS POLUCHA
It’s very well put. It was honestly my first time that I participated in an event like Bansko Nomad Fest. As far as I know, the biggest gathering of nomads and people who are active in the digital nomad community. It was very well organized. It was very insightful to hear all the talks from the areas of expertise that you just said. But I think you said it perfectly. It’s kind of like a Glastonbury because it’s like a very easy way of networking with people who are… Like -minded. Like I said, digital nomads are normally people who do this lifestyle because they chose to. So all these things that you mentioned, like borderless life, multiple residencies, entrepreneurship, it all goes hand in hand. So people are naturally gravitating towards more location freedom, financial freedom, and time freedom. And Bansko makes a great case and a great way to put all these people together, to talk, to have discussions, to see. where we can take this movement because as you know the movement has rapidly increased since 2020 because of the ability of people working remotely but currently there was a stronger push for people to return to the office but we still have the growth of the freelance gig economy I would still say that the movement is in very early days the movement is still trying to figure out what is going to be the next phase and where is it going to grow and I think it’s up to us to make sure that we do we understand the movement correctly and that we find ways how we can leverage this not only for the benefit of the people that participate at events like Bansko Nomad Fest, but for people who can actually benefit from nomads as visitors. So that’s the angle with the visitor economy where we believe that the local people and the destinations and the tour operators and everyone can benefit from digital nomads.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, it’s a good point that you made earlier that the digital nomad concept is not new. It’s been around for many, many years, but certainly the COVID pandemic has given a new impetus, not just to digital nomads and the view about the freedom to travel and global mobility, but also the mainstream travel industry has had to rethink, and governments as well, rethink their approach to what is a new and growing and very, very fast -changing and diversifying segment. That makes me want to push on to the next topic. Full disclosure, you and I have been in contact for a few months. And you mentioned something to me several months ago. You said that you reached out to a large number of tourism boards worldwide about their digital nomad strategy, and you received very little response. Now, why do you think that was? Was it a matter of timing? Is it something more structural? What are your impressions about that kind of reach out at the time?

MILOS POLUCHA
Yeah, you’re very right. So the whole idea is, as I said, I believe digital nomadism can solve problems. It is a great way, for instance, to tackle seasonal dips right so again like i’m currently based in the Azores and while we were building our our co-living space there were tour operators who are working on construction in the off season right and that to me was like very alarming because how can anyone can get better at their job if they cannot do their job but for a full year like how can we allow in tourism for people to basically be out of job for six months and having to go and work on a construction site and I know that digital nomadism is a great way to bring people into this destinations in the shoulder season in the off season because again nomads are people who travel all year long they go for great deals so if there is a specific program specific experience that they can attend they would like to do it so that was the angle that i was coming from and i was trying to build up more relationships with people from tourism boards across the world. I was a participant at events like WTM in London, talking to a lot of tourism boards. But I’ve received very little encouragement, mostly because I would say that the tourism boards are not even paying attention to who the digital nomads are. And I get it. As I said, digital nomads are still a fraction of percent of the total visitor numbers or the total visitor economy. I get it that it shouldn’t be their priority. But if you remember, I posted one time, I took my time, I did some calculation, looked into data, and on average, one digital nomad in Portugal spends 26 times as an average visitor, as an average tourist, right? So naturally, of course, I don’t need 100 ,000 digital nomads to come and see my destination. But what if I can bring 10,000 people, and if each of them spends 4,000 euros, then we can do the math for ourselves. It’s a lot of money that can be brought into the economy. But the tourism boards showed very little encouragement. It may be because they were not fully understanding or educated on how can the digital nomad actually help and bring economy and this is something what we take with us from Destinova also like to be more active in educational sphere to organize more webinars to help tourism or understands how they can actually how their entire ecosystems can benefit from digital nomads and it’s also a part of another project that I’m part of common ground where we are looking to build spaces around communities and basically help destinations build community-centered ecosystems for digital nomads where the destination itself will benefit and obviously last but not least I would also say that there is still a fine line between maybe tourism and emigration because you know digital nomads are still a tourist they still come and visit but a lot of them are basically coming with potentially a view of residing at a place. And I found out that a lot of times, the governmental bodies that are in tourism and in immigration are not fully collaborative. So as an example, when I was at WTM, one country just recently launched a digital nomad visa. I was very, very excited to talk to them about it. They had a giant booth, but nobody, there was maybe 50 representatives, nobody knew a word about digital nomad visa program, which was shocking to me because, again, I consider it a great opportunity.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, that segues very nicely into my next question, Milos, because I’m based here in Southeast Asia, and certainly since the pandemic, we have seen several countries in the region, Thailand, probably the most recent, Philippines also, Malaysia was maybe the first, Indonesia too, to introduce what is a so-called digital nomad visa. Now, these come in various terms, they have various conditions, they have various structures about how they would intend to entice and then to service digital nomads when they come to the country. But it’s very much an institutionalized view of the digital nomad market. So I wonder what’s your opinion of this approach of issuing formal digital nomad visas, which come with other terms and conditions. Are these kinds of programs welcomed by digital nomads? Are they a little bit too strict, perhaps? What’s your view?

MILOS POLUCHA
Effectively, I think it’s a great sign if a country is actively thinking about a digital nomad visa, because as I said before, nomads are someone who may be looking to not only relocate, but is maybe looking to remove their business, move their family. And at the end of a day, that’s the most valuable. What we can get is like acquire talented people and bring more business and more foreign direct investment into the destination. But it’s also true that I think. Currently in the world, there are maybe 50 to 70 countries that have some sort of digital nomad visa program. And I can tell you, Gary, that that’s just not true. Like a lot of them are just PR stunts. So there is a very fine line between what actually works and what doesn’t. And I think Thailand with a DTV visa is actually one of the great examples that actually solved a lot of problems because again, Thailand has been… One of these countries where a lot of travelers would go on this so-called visa runs, where they would have to leave the country, come back, which I felt was a gray zone and not helping anyone really. So I think having a clearly defined visa program for which anyone can pay and decide to stay there for, I think, up to five years, I think it can be beneficial for everyone. Because again, I think this is a lot of my friends got the DTV visa programs. And I think this is a great way to tell people, hey. we welcome you here and we’re happy that you’re here and we want you to stay.

GARY BOWERMAN
I guess one of the key issues, going back to your point about WTM, the sort of frontline tourism professionals weren’t fully clued up on the tourism visa or the program, or what would follow on from that. I guess it is quite a tricky area because when you’re talking about digital nomad visas, when you make it sort of institutionalized, it crosses different government departments. So you have taxation, you have finance, you have employment, you also have tourism, you have the financing of tourism, you have the tourism board. And then you have issues, particularly with local people, about, well, are digital nomads tax-free? Are they avoiding tax? Is it a tax dodge? There are a lot of issues to actually deal with. And the media has come down quite hard on some of these, hasn’t it? There’s been a lot of negative media coverage worldwide, I guess, of this kind of issue. How do you get around that?

MILOS POLUCHA
I totally understand it. And I agree that it’s still a very early days gray zone. And I think there’s a whole portray of digital nomad being a Westerner that is just trying to escape the West, escape the high taxes and just take benefits of like cheap destinations. I’m not trying to say that there are not people like that, that there are not people who are actually doing this, but I just think the whole movement has evolved past this. I can, for instance, when talking about visa, again, we’re often looking at it. from the perspective of somebody who is privileged and has a strong passport and can access so many different countries right but the truth is that there are digital nomads coming from india from thailand from like you know other countries not just from the west and for these people we should make sure that the countries are open to them and i think this whole positioning of of having someone who’s just willing to take an advantage and exactly as you said a lot of nomads are looking at it from their perspective like hey like I just want to do whatever I want to do. But it totally makes sense that the countries should understand, okay, what is your goal? What do you want from us? So I think the visa really helps in really understanding, hey, you can come here. This is the amount of days you can spend here if you decide to. I always say that there should be some level of incentivization or trying to incentivize the nomads to come and stay. Imagine you have a lot of nomads. I think over 40 % are startup founders or entrepreneurs or freelancers. So imagine if you just make sure that the nomad can stay here for six months to a year. And what if you incentivize him to create a program with the university to make sure that your local students get internship opportunities, for instance, right? This is just some of the ways of how we can get creative about making sure that the locals are benefiting from the nomads. But in general, I agree with you that there should be some process in place. The more tailored towards nomads or the more understanding of the nomads’ needs and their behavioral treats, the more effective it can be, I think, for both the destination, the local ecosystem, and for the nomads.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, that’s a good point. I think one of the interesting things, particularly here in Asia, and you may have seen this in other parts of the world during your travels, particularly in some of the larger countries, I’m thinking definitely China, definitely Vietnam, definitely Indonesia, is you are seeing a real growth and fragmentation of the domestic digital nomad scene. Very fast, very vibrant, growing really, really in interesting ways. In China, in provinces like Yunnan province, beautiful province, you’re seeing these sort of development of micro societies where more younger people, are looking to go and live and work in other areas. And that’s become part of their lifestyle. It isn’t really just about the finance of working. It’s a lifestyle issue. And I think that’s one of the interesting trends. What we see in Southeast Asia. particularly in terms of travel and lifestyle, that develop and form in China come into this region subsequently. So I think we’ll see more of that going forward. Vietnam is very, very progressive on this. Do you see much of that in terms of the domestic side of digital nomadism?

MILOS POLUCHA
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I know that people, again, you said it perfectly. Being a digital nomad is a lifestyle and you don’t have to be the nomad in an extreme way that you just want to travel the world. You know, like the first year I was a digital nomad, I just wanted to be everywhere at the same time. So I wanted to go to as many countries as I could have. But actually right now I’m getting more into this positioning where, hey, I want to be at the places I like with the communities I like. because I enjoy spending my time there so I think this is the ultimate goal and what I say is like digital nomads are almost like a temporary resident and your best ambassadors. You know I have a friend I always use as an example. He’s been a nomad for five or six years and he spends every winter in Asia. He spends every spring in the French Alps. He spends every Summer in the Canary Islands and he and he’s been living this way for five years and he keeps coming back you know because he considers this part of the world the best place to be in that specific time and this totally includes people who may be as you said like from from a different provinces in China but want to spend Summers at a different place it’s the same what we are seeing for instance in Portugal there is a lot of people from Lisbon or Porto coming to Azores in January, February, March just spending a couple weeks maybe in Azores. So I think definitely something that is evolving, definitely something what’s also in Thailand, you probably know, but there’s a lot of people from Bangkok coming to Chiang Mai, spending time in Chiang Mai at a specific month of a year. So, yeah, I think it’s just incredible to see the traction and the movement of people and being willing to even travel in their home countries.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, I think the interesting thing about this market is it continues to develop and diversify. Not just about the major markets, it’s about some of the smaller countries that have maybe limited tourism budgets. You mentioned you’re based in Azores, you’re currently in Slovakia. You recently spoke at a conference in Armenia, which is a very, very interesting, beautiful country. You can tell us a bit more. What did you find out there from speaking at the conference and also your travels while you were there?

MILOS POLUCHA
Right. So we’re working on a project with Nomad Armenia, which is a group that aims to bring more digital nomads to Armenia. Again, Armenia has been very known for its good immigration policy, visa policy. It’s a country that’s in the South Caucasus, so it’s accessible for many Europeans, for people from the Emirates, for people from Asia. But somehow there was not a lot of foreign digital nomads. But it has got everything. So we were traveling around the country a little bit, and I was shocked by… how safe, how welcoming, how hospitable, how beautiful. Although I want to say maybe there is a slight underinvestment in hospitality. But that was the cause of the amazing forum that was happening in the Erevan Hospitality Investment Forum. The idea was to talk to foreign and international investors about how can Armenia bring more interesting projects. And I was talking mostly about co-living spaces and the digital nomadism. Because that’s one part of like, okay, how can we bring a different travel segment, different travel sector again to Armenia? As you said, the budget of the National Tourism Board is probably one of the smallest on the global scale. But the country has so much to offer and there’s so many cool projects and so many people who are invested in Armenia’s success, be it through the diaspora, be it through the connections or the ties to the country. And it’s… It’s still not known. And even we traveled to Bansko Nomad Fest afterwards, and I was just talking about my experience in Armenia. The guys from Nomad Armenia were there, and so many people immediately sparked their interest into, hey, I’ve never heard of Armenia. And then we were talking about what made the difference between Georgia and Armenia, because these countries are basically neighboring countries, but Georgia had this amazing success story. Obviously, probably a bigger budget, but also the 1 % tax. helped to bring a lot of digital nomads into Georgia so what I’ve seen is basically that the infrastructure we often have destinations that have amazing infrastructure but maybe the campaign or maybe the word is not out in the world yet and again all it takes is maybe a few people or one or two programs to bring your dream visitor and say like hey this is what we have to offer we just need the world to know about it and that was exactly the case in Armenia that We often overlook destinations who may not be so known, but they have everything to offer. Another country that I know that is trying to bring more nomads in is Bhutan, which I find super interesting. Yeah,

GARY BOWERMAN
That’s really interesting. You made a really good point there because we’ve talked about governments and tourism boards and the promotional side of things there. Also, we’re looking at the infrastructure and the service side of things. It’s not just about the public sector, is it? This is something where not just digital nomad organizations, but certainly the private sector has to get involved. Have you noticed whether the private sector is reluctant to invest in this area from the hospitality forum? Are they looking more at more institutionalized, mainstream accommodation? I would actually say that the private sector is maybe even more interested than the government.

MILOS POLUCHA
Say that the private sector is maybe even more interested than the government. The concept of co-living, for instance, that I was talking about is gaining traction. We have more, maybe bigger investors all around the world thinking, okay, what is the co-living concept? How can we market the co-living concept? How can we build it in this destination? But it takes a dialogue. It takes, again, it takes people who are actively talking about it, companies who are trying to educate and change the narrative. But I do definitely think that there is more and more people in the private sector who are interested in the sector and again remote work doesn’t necessarily mean just digital nomads it means as I said remote works pleasure travel it means retreats it means corporate retreats you know so there is a strong market of of all of this that can somehow be tackled and and the ultimate goal is for us to be able to help build ecosystems all around the world where the destinations don’t need to focus on like you know speaking of all this over tourism but we want to use this this tool the remote work to spread the tourism across the countries use mostly rural areas that may be not so known not so developed but use the rural areas bring more energy there is awesome project called rooral.co they revitalize rural areas in Spain so their concept is they bring foreigners to to little villages and they sell the Spanish way of living. And it’s amazing seeing how much of a change it can bring. So the new energy to places that may be overlooked or not so visited. And I believe this is the ultimate goal of digital nomadism is to help build up places and make them resilient throughout the year.

GARY BOWERMAN
One of the things that you said to me off air before we spoke is that one of the challenges going forward now is how can the tourism authorities, governments, private sector players, community-based organizations? How can they rebalance some of these misaligned expectations between nomads, remote workers, and locals? Do you think that’s going to be a big challenge going forward? Is that really where the debate goes next? I believe so.

MILOS POLUCHA
I believe the step number one should be to change the thinking from, I don’t want digital nomads, I don’t want remote workers, to think, how can I benefit from them? And I think as soon as this mind shift happens, again… We’re happy to help with anything. We’re happy to provide data, show data, show insights. I know that there’s a lot of researchers already putting attention to really dwell into the behavioral traits of nomads. And I think as soon as we’re able to change this narrative of that nomads are our enemies into rather, okay, how can places actually benefit from people who want to come to our place and want to spend their time and money? I think that that’s going to change and set the destinations for rapid growth.

GARY BOWERMAN
I’m just going to throw one curveball at you just before we finish. I was speaking to somebody in one of the countries in the region, and their response, I think, was maybe you’ve heard this before. Oh, digital nomadism, that’s just modern, digitalized backpacking. How would you respond to that?

MILOS POLUCHA
Again, for sure, there are people who do it because they want to capitalize on the cheaper cost of living, but I think the data back… my findings and that’s that majority of people are in digital nomadism for the lifestyle and they want to change places they want to move places they want to move border live borderless life if you think of digital nomads as some sort of like the top of the funnel and then you think about the residents or potential new coming residents as the bottom of the funnel that gives you an idea of okay we want talented people At the end of the day, it comes down to that, right? Like, do you want talented people to come to your place and invest their time, invest their money, build families, have families or not? Yeah, I think my takeaway from what you’ve just said there is the phrase borderless life.

GARY BOWERMAN
Takeaway from what you’ve just said there is the phrase borderless life. I think that’s a terrific phrase. Is that how you live your life? Maybe, maybe partially. Yeah. And where are you traveling next? What’s on the agenda for you over the coming months?

MILOS POLUCHA
I’m going to Morocco for a brief stint to spend the time in another co-living space to learn a thing or two and then I’m going to Azores where I’m going to be based for most of the rest of the year we’re planning to open our co-living space that’s focused on outdoor enthusiasts so our whole thinking is like again promote the destinations as the destination is and what the destination has to offer and attract the the people that want to visit the destination

GARY BOWERMAN
Well, Milos, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. I’ve really enjoyed your insights. And hopefully we can do this again in maybe six to eight months’ time and see how the discussion has developed. Just before we go, if anybody wants to contact you or find out about your company, where do they go?

MILOS POLUCHA
Yeah, best is to go to destinova.online or visit my LinkedIn website that I can share with you and you can put it in the show notes.

GARY BOWERMAN
That’s a wrap for this issue of the High-Yield Tourism Podcast. My thanks to Milos. Thank you for your thoughts and thank you for your insights on an evolving era of tourism. All need to learn a lot more about over the coming years whether we describe it as digital nomadism work from anywhere or remote working we probably need to find out a lot more about this as we go forward.

MILOS POLUCHA
Thanks for having me, Gary

GARY BOWERMAN
It was a pleasure you can join our conversation on our linkedin page at High-Yield Tourism and we’ll be back soon to talk more High-Yield Tourism around the world. See you next time