LeggeroA Conscious Connection Between Tourists and the City
Mentors: Marzia Aricò, Mayo Nissen, Manali Mohanty
Duration: 2 week
Leggero is a service designed to bring tourists and the city of Bergamo closer, in a relationship that is smooth, sustainable, and respectful. It makes the city easier to navigate for visitors, while at the same time helping Bergamo care for its spaces, its people, and its rhythms of everyday life.
To use it, visitors simply create an account with Visit Bergamo, the city’s official tourism organization. From there, Leggero adapts in real time: guiding arrivals from the airport to their accommodation, suggesting public transport routes that avoid overcrowding, opening secure Wi-Fi access, and offering alternative paths that reveal parts of Bergamo tourists might otherwise miss. At times, it also shares discounts to encourage journeys into the wider province.
Our research included over 20 interviews with tourists, residents, hospitality workers, and city institutions. We traced a typical tourist journey: from booking flights and accommodation, arriving at Milan–Bergamo Airport (often thinking they are in Milan), to finding their way with a patchwork of Google Maps, airport staff, and host instructions. In many cases, the host remains their only trusted guide. What we noticed is that many visitors leave Bergamo barely explored, returning later with a clearer intention to stay and experience it more deeply.
The most difficult moment comes right after landing. Tourists often find themselves unprepared—caught between language barriers, fragmented public transport run by different companies, and scattered information points. Our ecosystem mapping showed how far reliable guidance lies from the tourist’s immediate reach: the Comune di Bergamo, Visit Bergamo, the state tourism office. This gap at the very start of their trip shapes the whole experience with confusion and uncertainty.
Once settled, most tourists flow toward Città Alta—especially Piazza Vecchia and its main street. This creates a heavy concentration of crowds in one part of the city, leaving other areas overlooked. At peak hours, streets, buses, and the funicular fill beyond comfort. Residents’ daily life is disrupted, and the overlap with student schedules makes the problem worse.
In this context, spreading attention across Bergamo and its province becomes not just desirable, but necessary. Yet obstacles of discoverability, awareness, language, and transport make it difficult. Institutions like Visit Bergamo are working hard to gather better data about tourist flows, both to handle these pressures today and to plan wisely for the future of the city and its economy.
Leggero is our proposal to bridge these needs. By connecting tourists directly to the city, it removes unnecessary barriers and middle steps. It offers smooth arrivals, thoughtful navigation, and gentle nudges toward exploration that feels both effortless and meaningful.
At its heart, Leggero is not just about solving problems of transport or information. It is about creating a co-dependent relationship between Bergamo and its visitors—one that is conscious, sustainable, and kind.