ABSTRACT
Guided tours are important contributors to tourists’ learning experiences. Building on guiding and learning theory, this chapter studies guides’ varying roles through history, and explores how such roles have contributed to tourists’ learning. In four historical steps, Cohen’s categorization of guides and Aristotle’s view of knowledge (as interpreted in a tourism perspective by Falk et al.) serve as theoretical foundations. Data is derived from tourism literature and from documents presented on guiding organizations’ webpages. The results show that learning plays a major role in travel, particularly on guided tours. Guides do not change from one guiding category to another but incorporate numerous guiding roles simultaneously. All three learning concepts – episteme, techne and phronesis – matter on guided tours. Phronesis is formed on the basis of episteme and techne.
