THE FUTURE OF TOUR GUIDING AND ITS TRENDS IN THE POST COVID-19 SOCIETY

Abstract

The corona virus has shaped our everyday life in many ways during the last two years. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the travel and tourism industries and opened many questions about the future of individuals working in the tourism industry. Traditional well-known concepts must be changed. The urban tourist of the post-covid time will probably travel in a world more digitally mediated than ever before. To stay relevant during the pandemic, business organizations had to apply digital tools. Tourism organizations did the same. Therefore, the position and perspectives of the tour guides whose role has always been an inevitable segment of the touristic offer has been called into question and is significantly threatened. The number of tourists was limited because of lockdowns, which seemingly led to disappearance of the ‘traditional’ guided group tours. This paper aims to provide the description of the position of the tour guides in the world considering the current epidemiological situation and to focus on the future trends that should be developed in this field. It also emphasizes the importance of recognizing new forms of touristic offers that shall influence the way of engaging tour guides, thus considering whether digitalization will somehow suppress the “live performance” of a tour guide.