A New Age in Tourist Guiding

Abstract

Internet and technology development has progressed rapidly in recent years, and people have quickly adapted to this technology age. Today, besides technological developments, activities are carried out within the framework of sustainable tourism understanding. When this is the case, tourist guides need to renew themselves in sustainable tourism and digital tourism subjects. In this direction, the chapter aims to reveal the perspective of tourist guides to sustainability in tourism and digital tourism and determine the place and importance of the tourist guiding profession in digital tourism. In line with the purpose, it was deemed appropriate to take the opinions of the tour guides who are actively doing their job to reach up-to-date information. Therefore, the semi-structured interview method, one of the qualitative data collection methods, aims to collect data and contribute to the chapter on an up-to-date basis. As a result of the interviews with the tourist guides, it has been determined that the tourist guides have information about sustainability and digital tourism; with today’s technology age, the tourist guides are influenced by digital tourism and fulfill their profession within the framework of sustainable tourism understanding. Besides, it has been revealed that tourist guides are not far from digital tourism and use social media platforms and YouTube channels to promote themselves.