Riassunto esame Inglese, prof. Camaiora, libro consigliato Dispensa Lingua Inglese Orale 3 anno - Turismo, Thorne

Damage limitation

Are you a tourist or a traveller?

This article deals with the tourism industry and the damages that it causes. Tourists destroy in fact the natural environment, they don’t respect local cultures, and so they have to be stopped. But today, that tourism is a so fast-growing industry, how can we stop people doing something they want to do and love doing? The best solution seems to re-brand tourism, by removing this term and substituting the expression “tourist” with other terms such as “adventurer”, “exploraholic”, “volunteer” or “traveller”. Tourism will be seen as a mission and un-tourist will pretend not to do what they are instead doing, i.e., going on holiday.

Un-tourist will, for example, avoid typical tourist infrastructures, such as hotels, but they will stay in a tent, a cabin or a local house. They also will have contacts with the local culture, which they will respect. This kind of tourist is what we can call “good tourist”, “respectful tourist”, “eco-tourist” or also “responsible tourist”, but it represents only 4% of the total tourism industry. The remaining 96% of tourists seem not to care about this problem. So today the challenge is to match mass tourism and responsible tourism, sustainability, for example by reducing water consumption or by building eco-friendly hotels. In this way, tourists can remain tourists, keeping their name and going on holiday, but, at the same time, respecting the country that is hosting them.

The negative and the positive aspects of ecotourism

This article deals with the negative and positive aspects of ecotourism.

• Ecotourism is an industry whose market is fast growing, even if it is becoming a marketing strategy: today people are in fact increasingly aware of the impact of tourism on the environment and so they want to be sure that, going on holiday doesn’t mean damaging the environment. The term “ecotourism” is often used by tourist companies in order to attract more and more people, transforming this eco-friendly tourism in a mass tourism.
• Another aspect we have to consider about ecotourism is its impact on ecosystems: this type of tourism increases the economic value of nature, because it has understood that, for example, animals are worthier alive than dead and so many animals and lands have been saved thanks to the ecotourism boom. Moreover, the number of infrastructures built in order to host tourists has been kept low to reduce the impact of tourism on the environment. Nevertheless, ecotourism has also a negative impact on ecosystems: it attracts in fact too many people in formerly remote landscapes, and this causes traffic jams, sound and water pollution, the erosion of soils and the production of garbage.
• In the end, the author considers also the impact of ecotourism on local cultures: on the one hand it educates tourists to be sensitive and responsible towards the host country, it can generate a cultural awakening in the host communities, and it also provides many local jobs. On the other hand, this type of tourism has a great negative impact on local cultures: tourists exploit in fact the nations which are hosting them, damaging and corrupting their culture; from the economic point of view, for example, most of the wealth produced by the tourism industry comes back to the nations the tourism is generated by, so the richest ones. Moreover, the workers coming from developed nations occupy the highly-paid jobs, leaving only low-paid jobs to the natives.

After having listed the main positive and negative aspects of ecotourism, the author gives some suggestions in order to make ecotourism really sustainable:

• The different countries should monitor tour operators and resorts in order to check their sustainability.
• People should be educated, and the awareness of nature in the tourism should be stimulated.

These are very important suggestions we have to take into consideration, in order to save our planet, not damaging it.

Mammon rampant in City of Shrines – Kyoto

The theme of this article is the city of Kyoto, whose name means “The City of Peace”. Kyoto is a city full of history, where ancient arts and crafts live on and where palaces, castles, temples and gardens still today maintain their historical fascination. However, a newly built hotel situated near one of the most famous temples in Kyoto is damaging and corrupting this sort of mystic atmosphere. The Buddhist monks can’t in fact accept that a hotel, which has also been allowed to break the city’s height restriction, has been built exactly next to the temple, destroying in this way the history around it.

Battle to save the Galapagos

This article deals with tourism in the Galapagos archipelago, which is considered a sort of paradise on Earth. The tourism industry is however destroying this paradise, devastating its landscape, killing the animals the archipelago is populated by, and introducing new species, which represent a real threat to the islands. The archipelago is often devastated by fires; many of the giant tortoises have been killed and many indigenous species are dying out.

Today the Government and different tour operators are trying to do their best to avoid and to reduce the negative impact of tourism in this area: they have in fact banned export fishing, but also prohibited the issuing of any more tourist licenses.

They came, they saw, they ate pizza – Europe

This article deals with tourism in Europe and in particular in Britain, underlining how tourism has changed on this continent. Before, Europe and Northern America were the two continents the flows of tourists were generated by. Nowadays, the situation is pretty different: the number of tourists in Europe has been rising during the last five years and it isn’t going to stop growing, because new visitors arrive from new places such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea and Japan, which are attracted by the ancient remains of cities like Paris, London or Amsterdam. This is the reason why the author claims that Europe is becoming a sort of big theme park.

The increase in the number of tourists has already had a strong negative impact on Europe and in particular on Britain, which is today totally transforming. For example, the Japanese have established a sort of second Japan, where they don’t have to speak English, they can pay in yen and where they can find branches of Tokyo department stores.

Service without a smile

This article concentrates on services and how these services are provided to people who aren’t visitors. The author demonstrates in fact that there’s a great difference between how visitors are treated and how residents are treated. He doesn’t think that this difference characterizes Britain only and so he makes many examples, taking into consideration different kind of tasks, in order to prove that this difference in the treatment of visitors and citizens is widespread all over the world. He considers for example how people are treated in restaurants, in banks and in electrical shops. Through these examples, he underlines how many services are provided without a smile and how cashiers and clerks aren’t often ready to fulfill the needs of customers.

Holiday reps enjoy a hard day’s night – Majorca

This article deals with a tour operator, called Sunworld, which works in Majorca, the UK’s top package-holiday destination. This team is composed of 46 members who work night and day in order to deal with arrivals and departures, to take care of visitors and to solve current problems of tourists, whose requests have to be fulfilled. They also have to deal with complaints, to sort out overbooking problems caused by hoteliers and to organize excursions and guided tours. The tourists who come to Majorca are of every kind: there are families, young people, but also VIPs. The main task of Sunworld is to find the perfect accommodation for these people.

Sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism is tourism attempting to make as low impact on the environment and local culture as possible, while helping to generate future employment for local people. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development brings a positive experience for local people, tourism companies, and the tourists themselves.

Tour operator

A tour operator is an organization which typically combines tour and travel components to create a holiday. They prepare itineraries. The most common example of a tour operator's product would be a flight on a charter airline plus a transfer from the airport to a hotel and the services of a local representative, all for one price.

Countries and cities

Blackpool: the unpleasurable

This article deals with the English city Blackpool, which is a very unpleasant place, according to the author. But, despite its unpleasantness, it attracts millions of visitors every year. For this reason, the author wonders why such an unattractive place is still today able to attract so many people each year. He explains that the city of Blackpool hasn’t changed during the last century and so people are today used to it. Moreover, this city has taken advantage of the low-cost air travel. Today Blackpool has many hotels and lodgings, which can survive thanks to the people who come for weekend breaks, even if the main profits come from bars and nightclubs. In order to increase the number of tourists who visit the city, the government has also decided to allow the opening of a supercasino in Blackpool.

Cornish tourism: change in the air

This article deals with the English region of Cornwall, which is a very poor one, the poorest one of the United Kingdom. The only four economical activities that have been carried out in this region are mining, agriculture, fishing and tourism, but today the only one which is thriving is tourism. The number of tourists is in fact rising, especially wealthy people who come and visit the southern coast of Cornwall. This increase is due to the opening of new tourist attractions (such as a tropical Victorian garden) and the fact that low-cost airlines are opening new routes in order to reach Cornwall. Moreover, some of these airlines are trying to create new types of business, such as short breaks in spring and autumn.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

This article deals with a famous Scottish poet, called Robbie Burns, who was very appreciated by the people of his homeland and who died 25 years ago. During his life, he composed many poems dedicated to Scotland, but now that he is dead, Scottish people seem not to care about his memory. For example, many monuments dedicated to him are today falling down, such as the modern visitor center or the Burns Monument in Kilmarnock which were burned and damaged by vandals. Even the park dedicated to Burns is today in very bad conditions, but Scotland seems to ignore it.

London buses: driving gently into the good night

This article deals with one of the most famous icons of the city of London, the Routemaster, which is the old red double-decker. Today they are very few, because the mayor and the association Transport for London (TfL) have decided to replace them with more modern busses, such as the so-called “bendy buses” and newer double-deckers. As they expected, this change caused lots of critics and complaints. These new busses haven’t obviously the history the older ones had, but they are inevitably more comfortable, especially for those people who use wheelchairs and who can finally have the possibility to board a bus. However, the Routemaster won’t totally disappear from London, because it will still be used by visitors in order to give them the opportunity to reach famous tourist attractions by using this icon of historic London.

Routemaster

The old double-decker, one of the most famous icons of historic London.

Bendy-bus

It’s a single-deck bus, but composed of two parts which are linked with a sort of joint.

Infinite variety

This article deals with Australia, a very isolated continent, which has however a lot to offer. From the reef, to cities like Sydney or Melbourne and the magnificent winelands of the south and west. Tourists can do many different activities, such as diving in order to discover the wonders under the surface of the Pacific, visiting natural parks and the ancient Tasmanian forest. For this variety of attractions and despite the distance from the other continents, Australia is today one of the most appreciated places for holidays and tourism is here the fast-growing industry.

“Garden of Eden” found in the jungle

This article deals with the discovery of a very particular place, a sort of lost world, a paradisiac place which seems the “Garden of Eden” on Earth. This place is situated in the jungle of New Guinea and it’s populated by strange birds, butterflies, plants and new species of animals. Today tourists can’t access this area, since the Indonesian Government has decided to protect it.

Sunhat, bikini, flak jacket

This article deals, let’s say, with an alternative form of tourism. In fact, the author proposes three particular destinations to spend holidays, in which visitors won’t find any other tourists. These three places are in fact very dangerous and they are Zimbabwe, North Korea and Port Harcourt (Nigeria).

• In Zimbabwe tourists have to be careful because the political situation isn’t stable and for example many dissidents or people who are suspected of voting for the opposition are murdered. However, thanks to the magnificent nature of this place, the animals and the hospitality of its people, Zimbabwe is still a pleasant place to visit.
• North Korea is also very dangerous for tourists: here there is a communist dictator and who complains or says something disrespectful about him will be hardly punished. The regime keeps people poor and doesn’t even provide them the basic food they need.
• The third destination which is taken into consideration by the author is Port Harcourt, a city of Nigeria, which is still today characterized by extreme poverty: this is due to the fact that the oil resources of Nigeria are exported, while African people remain poor. This situation has already caused many fights and revolutions and the same happens today. However, Port Harcourt is still a pleasant place to visit, which can offer tourists its folklore, its attractions and also its food which is known all over the world.

Moreover, the author gives tourists some suggestions: for example in Zimbabwe they have to be careful because the animals of the savannah could be aggressive; in North Korea, they mustn’t say anything disrespectful about the dictator or his dad; in Port Harcourt, they have to be careful with criminals.

Flak jacket

It’s a vest, which protects against shotguns.

A special case – Switzerland

This article deals with a special country in Europe, Switzerland, which has always been considered a country different from the others and seen as a symbol of democracy, stability, quality, efficiency, so almost as the personification of perfection. Actually, the author says, Switzerland isn’t so perfect, because, as any other country, it has its own problems and imperfections. For example, during the Second World War, despite its declaration of neutrality, Switzerland didn’t allow Jews to take asylum, in order not to be attacked by Germany.

Moreover, the economic system of Switzerland is based on exports, but today, due to the global economic crisis, also this country suffers; the unemployment has for example increased, which is a very strange fact for a country like Switzerland, which has always imported foreign workers in order to solve the problem of labor shortages. Furthermore, the Swiss education system isn’t today so perfect, because research has proved that Swiss kids are very good at math, but not so good at reading and science. So, the conclusion is that Switzerland isn’t as perfect a country as it might seem, because it has the same problems the other countries have; maybe the only factor which distinguishes Switzerland from the other European countries is the fact that it doesn’t want to take part in the EU.

Indian charm – snakes-charming

This article deals with a new law in India, which has banned snake-charming, a widespread practice in India, through which many people earn their living.