La puissance prescriptive des guides à Paris

Abstract

Tour guides are mediators between tourists and spaces. As they embody a physical presence helping tourists and informing them about the city, they also act as prescribers, laying down what is supposed to be seen and to be done. If their recommendations depend on the tourists they travel with, they always mean to produce a discourse on the city. Paris’ museums and heritage have long since been two cornerstones of her enduring appeal. Confronted with this phenomenon, which tends to standardize the way of visiting a city, tour guides try to free their guidelines of symbolic references. This contribution focuses on the tension between must-see tourist references and the desire to show the city in all its diversity. These elements participate in feeding the current, public-authority-driven, reflection on polarized forms of tourism in Paris and on the importance of producing more contemporary urban references.

Keywords

• guide
• Paris
• recommandation
• standardisation
• tourism
• geography