Tourism Relationbits

Will tourist guides survive or will they be made redundant by digital technologies? Can we substitute theguide by an app or by a robot? Is a tourism experience without technology more or less authentic? And isour capacity to engage in human relationships and with a place threaten or enhanced by our digitalgadgets? This talk will examine these challenging questions by looking at how digital technologiescontribute to the construction of personal identities, our relationship to others and to place. It willchallenge two popular beliefs in our understanding of technology: firstly, that digital mediatedcommunication is a question about the self-directed relationship between an individual and a set oftechnological tools and platforms and secondly, that virtual media are something immaterial or less ‘real’.To discuss how this complexity may impact in the development of guided tours, I will introduce a series ofconcepts of human-technology studies such as situated action, embedded cognition and ideological fields.Finally, I will combine these theoretical ideas with the insights of my research on social media and examinepossible future scenarios for tour guides.