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AI can introduce attractions and plan itineraries like a tour guide, and has even been praised by tourists for its "almost identical" delivery. Industry insiders say that while AI can handle standardized explanations, it cannot create surprises for tourists on their birthdays or respond quickly to unexpected situations. Furthermore, AI will force tour guides to upgrade from "repeaters" to "cultural experience mentors."

"It feels like tour guides are really going to lose their jobs..." On social media platforms, many netizens shared their experiences of using AI as tour guides: having AI imitate tour guides to introduce attractions, and the AI's explanations were "almost exactly the same as offline tour guides." With AI entering the tourism industry, will tour guides be replaced by AI?

New tools for independent travel

"AI doesn't conflict much with the actual work of tour guides," said Ye Lei, a veteran tour guide. While independent travelers can indeed use AI to plan their itineraries and learn about scenic spots, travel agencies still arrange tour guides to provide explanations and tour guide services in regular group tours. The emergence of AI will likely lead some tourists to choose independent travel rather than having it directly replace tour guides.

Wang Yang (pseudonym), who plans to travel to Austria, is a typical example. In the past, she needed to consult books and various travel guides to slowly determine her itinerary. Now, she only needs to tell the AI the attractions she wants to visit, and the AI will help her organize the routes and related information. However, Wang Yang does not rely entirely on AI. She will also check the information through official websites of the attractions, "In most cases, the information provided by AI is accurate." Tourist Huang Fei (pseudonym) considers it from a price perspective: "For me, the most important thing when visiting cultural and historical sites is the guided tour, otherwise I won't understand a lot of things. But hiring a human guide is quite expensive, so AI can basically meet my needs."

Museums are one of the most widespread applications of AI-powered audio guides. Ye Lei observed that many museums now offer AI-powered audio guides or mobile virtual reality audio guides, allowing visitors to listen while walking around by simply wearing headphones.

Bu Xiting, associate researcher at the School of Cultural Industry Management, Communication University of China, believes that AI can take over the standardized parts of a tour guide's work, such as introducing knowledge points and providing textual descriptions of scenes. Especially when it is inconvenient to hire a tour guide or time is limited, AI can provide companion-style explanations and location information, meeting the basic needs of independent travelers.

Temperature and Strain Beyond the Data

AI can fluently introduce dynasty years and architectural data, but this does not mean that it is sufficient to replace human tour guides—a judgment that practitioners and scholars agree with.

Ye Lei's changing work style perfectly illustrates the difference between AI and tour guides. When assigned to guide visitors at museums, he no longer limits himself to the basic information that AI can provide, but goes further to explore the connections between cultural relics and traditional culture, as well as the stories behind the relics. "We need to make different changes to the content of the explanations based on the different professions, age groups, and cultural levels of the visitors, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach," Ye Lei said.

The difference becomes even more pronounced when faced with emergencies. Ye Lei believes that tourists can use AI to quickly check road conditions and scenic spot information, providing a reference for adjusting their itineraries. However, when it is truly necessary to make judgments, make quick decisions, and handle situations flexibly based on the actual situation, human guides are still essential.

Bu Xiting believes that the core value of tour guides, which are difficult for AI to replace, lies mainly in four aspects. First, embodied perception and emotional interaction: AI lacks the ability to observe users' expressions, emotions, and needs in real time, and therefore cannot provide personalized services. Second, the ability to handle emergencies: Faced with complex road conditions, altitude sickness, itinerary changes, and other emergencies, human tour guides possess the ability to make quick decisions and handle situations flexibly, while AI often fails in such non-standardized scenarios. Third, the ability to translate culture and empathize: Excellent tour guides can transform cultural heritage into stories that contemporary people can empathize with, providing emotional value and life insights—something AI currently struggles to generate through algorithms. Fourth, trust and a sense of security: Tourists tend to entrust their safety to experienced and knowledgeable human tour guides, and AI currently lacks sufficient social trust.

So what exactly is the core value of a tour guide? Ye Lei shared his tour guiding habits. When he receives the list of tourists for long-haul tours, he immediately checks the tourists' basic information, one of which is their birthday. "In all my years of actually leading tours, I often create birthday surprises for tourists. It's a kind of human touch and warmth."

From "Repeating Machine" to "Cultural Experience Mentor"

With the arrival of AI, what will become of tour guides? According to Bu Xiting, the intervention of AI will drive further stratification and reshuffling within the tour guide industry. Tour guides with weaker skills and slower knowledge updates may be more significantly impacted, while those with distinctive personalities, strong storytelling abilities, and outstanding service skills are expected to have greater opportunities for development.

Ye Lei also observed that the emergence of AI has raised tourists' expectations for travel, and they are asking more challenging questions. In his view, this presents an opportunity to force tour guides to improve their professional skills. Future tour guides will not only need to continuously update their knowledge base, but also to "know the why," being able to apply their knowledge to different situations and demonstrate a thorough understanding of traditional culture.

Ye Lei has also come up with a new direction for his career: "I will take on more of the role of 'cultural experience mentor,' because today's tourists care more about the psychological impact of different cultural experiences."

According to Bu Xiting, the upgrade of the tour guide profession can be approached from several aspects. First, it's crucial to improve soft skills, focusing on communication abilities and the capacity for quick judgment and timely response in unexpected situations. Second, it's essential to specialize in a specific area, avoiding becoming a jack-of-all-trades, master of none; instead, develop professional expertise in areas such as food or history. Third, it's vital to enhance personal branding and content creation capabilities, leveraging self-media platforms to showcase professional strengths, build a personal brand, attract customers through content, and adapt to new communication methods. Simultaneously, it's important to learn to use AI as an assistant, utilizing it for basic tasks such as information retrieval, draft generation, and translation, while reserving more energy for services and innovation that truly require human intervention.

Ye Lei strongly agrees. He believes that AI is currently mainly used to collect and organize information, while the tour guide's job is to digest this information and ultimately help them make decisions.

While AI is rapidly entering the tourism industry, some new risks cannot be ignored. Bu Xiting specifically mentioned that there are still some gaps in the legal and regulatory framework for AI tour guides. For example, when AI explanations err, go out of control, or even cause infringement or personal injury, there is a lack of clear rules on how to divide responsibility among operators, technology providers, and scenic spots. Furthermore, the legal boundaries of copyright, portrait rights, and voice usage rights involved in AI-generated content also exist. In addition, some regions have limited funding and capacity to establish regulatory systems, and the risks of disorderly development of AI applications and data security are also worth noting. He suggested that institutional innovation should be used to guarantee tour guides' reasonable income and bargaining power, and that the personal branding models of media hosts and artists could be used as a reference to broaden tour guides' career development paths and income sources, thereby promoting further improvement in the industry's service quality.

(Source: Workers' Daily reporter Wang Xianru)