On May 4, 2025, I had the honour and great pleasure of delivering a talk titled “Tangible and Intangible Impacts of Nocturnal Cultural Events: The Role of Light Festivals in Proximity Tourism in Portugal”, as part of the Cities and Creativity seminar series hosted by the Universidade do Algarve in Faro.
The session provided an opportunity to share reflections on the evolving role of light festivals within the framework of proximity tourism—an increasingly relevant model in post-pandemic travel and regional cultural strategies. Drawing from my previous ethnographic work on Lumina (Cascais) and LUZA (Loulé), I examined how these events do more than attract visitors: they activate emotional geographies, reframe nighttime urban experience, and contribute to the symbolic and social regeneration of smaller cities.
My intervention underscored the importance of accounting for both tangible and intangible impacts when evaluating the legacy of nighttime cultural events. While economic indicators remain a dominant tool in policy discourse, this focus often overlooks transformations in local identity, community pride, symbolic capital, and the sensory reactivation of urban space.
I am deeply grateful to Dr. Carmen Zita Monereo for the invitation and for curating such a rich and interdisciplinary conversation on culture, tourism, and the night. The Universidade do Algarve proved to be an excellent platform for connecting with colleagues and students working on creative urban strategies in Southern Portugal and beyond.
Manuel Garcia-Ruiz 