The Future of Tourist Guidance Concerning the Digital Technology: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The advancements in robotic technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital applications prepared the grounds for occupations, especially tourist guidance in the tourism industry. The study is one of the preliminary studies in its field having a comparative approach to analyze tourist guidance concerning the development of digital technology from the perspective of tourist guidance students and Turkish professional tour guides. Simple random sampling is used in the study. The first sample is 52 tourist guidance students in a foundation university. The second sample is 20 professional tour guides. A structured interview technique is used to collect data from the students and a telephone interview technique is used for the tour guides. Findings reveal that the guides do not believe that digital development will affect their jobs negatively soon but they know there is a threat of robots with artificial intelligence, the use of digital applications, and smart technologies. They highlight the key tools on their hands such as the human touch and emotions, human expression of feelings about tourist spots instead of digital voices, apps, and virtual tours. More than half of the guidance students think that they are going to lose their jobs to a robot guide. The study enlightens the field of tourist guidance for researchers and organizations.

Robotisation in travel and tourism: Tourist guides' perspectives on robot guides

“…The results of this study are in line with the results of studies conducted by Bose et al (2022), Ivanov (2022), andSamala et al (2020), all of which indicate that robots may replace human guides in the future. On the other hand, Nazlı (2020) suggests that robots will not immediately impact the profession of guidance, while Sotohy (2020) firmly believes that robots will never replace humans in the profession.…”

“…Source: Boboc et al, 2014;Yıldız, 2019. The results from a study by Nazlı (2020) indicate that tourist guides do not foresee an immediate negative impact on their profession due to digital developments. However, they acknowledge the looming threat posed by robots equipped with artificial intelligence, the adoption of digital applications, and smart technologies.…”

Müzelerde Dijitalleşme Sürecine İlişkin Sanal Müzelerin İncelenmesi

“…Buna örnek olarak, müzelerdeki robot rehberler (Özalkan vd., 2022), insansı rehber robotlar (Díaz Boladeras vd., 2015;Boboc vd., 2014), turist rehberliği ve hizmet endüstrisindeki mobil uygulamalar (Nugraha & Alimudin, 2020;Dorcic vd., 2019;Bogiceviç vd., 2017;Lai, 2015), sanal turlar (Loureiro vd., 2020;Bhatti vd., 2018), turizm deneyiminde sanal gerçeklik (Nisiotis vd., 2020;Bogiceviç vd., 2019), bilgi kioskları, 3D cihazlar ve oyun tabanlı araçlar (Hacıoğlu & Tekin, 2016), robotların insanların mimiklerini ve jestlerini anlamalarına ilişkin çalışmalar ve duygularına ilişkin yanıt verme (Ahn & Choi, 2012) turist rehberliğindeki dönüşümü ve bu mesleğe bakış açılarını göstermektedir. Bununla birlikte Türkiye'de turistlere gidilen yerler hakkında bilgi verme görevi gören sesli araçlar, mikrofonlar ve sesli rehberler aracılığıyla kulaklık kullanımı turist rehberliği mesleğini etkileyen teknolojik örneklerden bazılarıdır (Nazlı, 2020).…”