Phygital time geography, or: what about technology in tourists’ space-time behaviour?

Abstract

The paper argues for the renewed relevance of time geography in tourism in light of the use of mobile technologies and ubiquitous connectivity. The paper proposes the concept of phygitality to understand how digital technologies are used in physical space, and how the interaction between the physical and the digital reconfigures tourists’ projects, paths, bundles, and constraints. The theoretical contribution builds on fifteen semi-structured interviews. The analysis shows that capability, coupling, and authority constraints are altered and mediated by digital devices. In the phygital time-space, tourists orient themselves in physical spaces, influenced by digital information; they create phygital paths and move between stations that result from the overlaying of digital information onto the physical space. Tourists’ goal-oriented mobility results in phygital projects, where logics of efficiency and optimization reduce the liminality of the tourist experience. Tourists’ bundles are created within and outside the physical vacation prism through digital communication.