Workations as A Territorial Innovation for Tourist Peripheries

In a context of changing professional and tourism practices, peripheral tourist regions are seeking to diversify their economies and reduce the seasonality of their activities. In this perspective, the concept of “workation”, or tracances, combining remote work and tourism, is emerging as a form of territorial innovation likely to transform the regions concerned. This paper examines how actors, particularly public ones, are appropriating this phenomenon in order to integrate it into their development strategies. The approach is based on a qualitative study including thirty interviews with coliving space managers in three peripheral regions (Algarve, Canary Islands, Azores), complemented by an analysis of grey literature and institutional websites. Preliminary results show that workations can indeed foster economic diversification, extend periods of activity, stimulate new forms of governance, and generate hybrid communities. More than a simple trend, they appear as a strategic opportunity to rethink certain territorial development models.