Tourism 5.0 in Practice: Navigating the Tensions Between Digital Efficiency and Lived Authenticity in the Saudi Context

The Tourism 5.0 paradigm is emerging as a pivotal response to the limits of a purely efficiency-oriented digitalisation, by placing people and sustainability back at the centre of innovation to create a holistic and responsible tourism ecosystem. Within the framework of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has adopted this orientation as a lever for economic diversification as a leading international tourism destination drawn on its cultural heritage and natural resources. However, the shift from theory to practice, in a context of very rapid transformation, raises questions about the balance between technological automation and authentic cultural experience. To address such questions and explore the tension between automation and authenticity resulted from the transition towards Tourism 5.0, a qualitative interpretive approach was undertaken. Based on 24 in-depth interviews conducted with Saudi and international experts during the TOURISE 2025 event. The reason for the interviews is to delve deeply into experts’ perceptions on how artificial intelligence and data are being integrated into the tourism sector as well as addressing the potential conflict between digitalization and authenticity. The findings reveal a strong ambition to build a Saudi "smart heritage" for enhancing, not replacing, cultural experience. There is also a need for structural challenges related to the development of hybrid skills among the workforces. The skills should include mixing technological proficiency with deep cultural knowledge and hospitality expertise proficiency. The results also emphasised the inclusion of small local tourism and hospitality businesses for successful transition. Implications of these findings are then discussed and elaborated.