سائحو البداوة الرقمية في المقصد السياحي المصري: الدوافع والتحديات

Abstract

Since COVID-19, remote work has become common, which has given rise to a unique tourist category named digital nomad tourists. They are location-independent workers who travel extensively for pleasure while continuing to work remotely via digital means. Today, tourism destinations are targeting this tourist market, promoting themselves as "digital nomad-friendly places" with great living and working conditions, such as Egypt. This study aims to explore the motivations and disadvantages of being a digital nomad. Moreover, it examines Egypt's strengths as an attractive destination for this unique tourist segment, while also highlighting the challenges and threats that may reduce the country's appeal to this market niche from the perspective of digital nomad tourists. Using a qualitative methodology, 23 semi-structured interviews were carried out with digital nomad tourists in Egypt. The results reveal that the digital nomads are motivated to adopt this travel-based lifestyle for a variety of reasons, such as the need for freedom, autonomy, and escape from routine life. While this lifestyle provides numerous advantages to digital nomad tourists, like flexibility and the chance to travel and see other cultures, it also has numerous drawbacks, including loneliness, and a lack of stability in jobs and income. The findings also highlight a number of challenges that digital nomad tourists face in Egypt, such as the internet connection, the visa system and the presence of uncomfortable behaviors such as harassment. Based on the previously stated results, the study also carried out a SWOT analysis of digital nomad tourism in Egypt. Finally, this study offers implications for destination managers and companies to maximize their marketing and product development efforts for this particular segment of tourists.