I recently had a productive visit to Tampere University in Finland, sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the Finland Fulbright Foundation. The contacts at Tampere University that facilitated this research visit were made possible by the PASCAL network of associates. I thank Mike Osborne for these introductions

I have been writing Policies for Places now for just about 1 year. It began as a ‘twixmas’ activity at the end of December 2022. Since then I have posted some 25 pieces on a range of topics of current relevance to making better places. In doing so I have been much encouraged by the steadily growing number of you who have read these and have found them interesting enough to subscribe.

We are pleased to share with you the December Edition of Wyndham News, featured below in full and attached for download.

As I write there are at least 50 Christmas Markets underway in towns and cities across the UK, and many more in Europe and around the globe. They bring thousands of visitors, provide a boost to the tourist and hospitality industries and to local economies.  They seem to attract impressive visitor numbers and to be popular among residents, but what we know about their economic and social impact beyond the basic statistics of estimated visitor numbers, additional spending and jobs created is limited so let’s explore this phenomenon a little more.