Today is World Tourism Day. This year’s theme is “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism.” In an age of search and recommendation, choosing a destination can happen faster than ever.
NowHitz Editorial · 2026-09-27 · From the archive
Nearly a century ago, Na Hye-sok left Korea in 1927 and returned in 1929. She studied painting and visited museums during her time in Paris, but her writing was never only a list of landmarks. She watched faces at the dinner table, elderly readers in libraries and the small habits by which people judged one another.
Landmark names are only one part of remembering a city. Readers in a library, a conversation over a meal or the places people choose to rest can reveal something of its everyday life. The depth of a journey need not correspond to the number of places visited.
Technology can choose a faster route and surface places that fit our tastes. It cannot decide which moment will stay with us. Once the destination is chosen, perhaps the more useful question is what we will not walk past without looking.
A route can be recommended. Attention cannot be outsourced.
