Temporal tourism and time as the next frontier: a futures-oriented narrative approach

Purpose As digitalization accelerates and human attention becomes increasingly fragmented, time itself is emerging as a resource to be designed, commodified and reimagined in tourism. This paper explores the future of “temporal tourism” – experiences that manipulate, stretch, compress or decouple travelers’ perception of time. Design/methodology/approach Using a futures-oriented narrative synthesis, this paper envisions how time may become the next frontier of experiential differentiation in tourism, identifying three plausible futures – temporal design, chrono-personalization and temporal ethics – and proposing an integrative framework linking temporal experience, technology and ethics. Findings Together, these strands forecast an emerging reorientation where destinations and operators compete not merely for visitors’ attention, but for their temporal consciousness – shaping how individuals live, remember and make meaning through travel. Originality/value The study contributes theoretically by reframing time as a central construct in tourism experience and by advancing an integrative framework that links temporal experience, technology and ethics.