PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH FOR TOURISM I
4 créditos
Profesor
Lcda. Martha Loor Fernandez, Mg.
Titulaciones Semestre
• TURISMO Tercero
Tutorías: El profesor asignado se publicará en el entorno virtual de aprendizaje, y sus
horarios de clases se indicarán en la pestaña de Cronograma (Horario de clases).
Periodo Abril – Agosto 2024
Resultado de aprendizaje de la asignatura
To prepare future tourism professionals for the demands of English competences in the
touristic field, providing students the fundamental basis for using and improving their
English skills in listening, reading, speaking and writing.
Unit 4 Tourist motivation
Learning outcoming of the Unit: Aplicación… Express yourself orally in English to
answer questions, give oral presentations and discuss a topic.
Lesson 1: Why do people travel?
Communication goal: To know the people’s motivation to travel. To describe some
purposes and reason to travel
Why travelling?
Most tourist arrivals statistics classify visitors as:
• Leisure tourism
• Visiting Friends and Relatives (abbreviated to VFR)
• Business tourism.
This classification reflects the reason for travelling.
Leisure tourism covers any activity we
undertake in our free time and which produces
pleasure. This includes health tourism, sports
tourism (both watching and participating),
educational travel, cultural and historical travel,
travel for religious reasons, and so on.
There is a leisure element to VFR, especially in
social occasions like wedding or birthdays.
However, VFR is often not dependent on
tourism services like accommodation. Because of this, many tourism authorities see VFR
as sufficiently different from leisure tourism to be seen as a class on its own.
Business tourism covers a wide range of activities: exhibitions and fairs, conferences,
business meetings, and incentive travel. People travelling on business need to relax, and
they may be take advantage of a business trip to visit a local tourist attraction. However,
business travel is different from leisure tourism and VFR in that the main reason for
travelling is work, not pleasure.
The motivations that cause people to travel vary enormously. It is generally felt, however,
that in addition to the internal drives we all experience and that “push” us to travel, there
are other influences. The attractions at the different destinations or the popularity of a
destination among our acquaintances are often said to “pull” us into travelling.
Tourist behavior is the way people act when they travel to other places. Sadly, not all
tourist behavior is appropriate. Of course, we often behave differently on holiday, but
when that behavior is deemed unacceptable by the culture we are visiting, problems
arise. These are sometimes referred to as culture clash.
Travel agents and tour operators can help reduce culture clash by informing clients about
behavior at their destination. It can also be avoided fi the host authorities make
information available through websites, hotels, or specific tourist attractions. Well
handled, it is the very nature of cultural difference that makes travel to exotic places
interesting.
Reading part
Inside tourism: reasons for travel
Reasons for travel and money spent on travel percentages
REASONS FOR TRAVEL
Leisure tourism 53 %
Business tourism 11 %
VFR tourism 32 %
MONEY SPENT ON TRAVEL
Leisure tourism 70%
Business tourism 16%
VFR tourism 11%
Lesson 2. Reasons for travel
Communication goal: To be aware of the reasons for travel and describe some
purposes to do it.
Some important reasons
There are plenty of benefits to packing your bags and traveling the world. Besides
experiencing exotic foods and learning about different cultures, travelling can improve
your physical and mental well-being. Next, you can find some good reasons on why they
should travel.
• Sightseeing: the activity of visiting places of interest in a particular location.
• Study tour: a trip by a group of pupils, usually made for educational purposes.
• Trade fair: exhibitions at witch businesses in a particular industry promote their
products and services.
• Trek: a long arduous journey, especially one made on food.
• Wedding: a ceremony where two people get married.
• Conference: a type of tourism in which large groups, usually planned well in
advance, are brought together for a particular purpose.
• Day trip: a journey in which a person goes to visit a place and then returns home
on the same day.
• Festival: an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some
characteristic aspect of the community and its religion or cultures.
• Familiarization trip: or FAM for short is a trip designed for travel advisors to learn
about a destination, a partner travel company, or an airplane and sometimes all of
the above.
• Incentive tour: a trip offered as a prize, particularly to stimulate the productivity of
employees or sale agents.
• Weekend break: a short holiday package of two or three days, especially on
Saturdays and Sundays.
• Pilgrimage: journey to an important religious place.
The world’s biggest attractions
Travelers are always looking for inspiration to guide their adventures. Coming up with a
list of places to visit can be challenging when you're staring at a globe. What are the top
tourist attractions in the world? The most iconic sites that all travelers have on their
bucket-list of things to see around the globe?
Some destinations just stand out above the rest. Many are the type of places where you
can take a photo, and it requires no explanation to identify the location: the Eiffel Tower
or the Colosseum. But some places are less well known to new travelers or those who
have not yet ventured out to the more exotic destinations. These can often be the most
rewarding to visit.
For many of these attractions, it's what they symbolize and the destinations they
represent that make them so significant. In other cases, it is the site itself that makes it
worth visiting the country. Some of these are the more popular UNESCO World Heritage
sites.
Eiffel Tower, Paris Machu Picchu, Peru The Colosseum, Rome
The Hajj is the islamic
pilgrimage to the holy city
of Mecca. There are an
estimated 1.3 billion
Muslims in the world, and
during the Hajj, the city of
Mecca must cope with as
many as 4 million pilgrims.
Statue of Liberty, New York city
You can read more about this topic in this link https://www.planetware.com/world/top-
rated-tourist-attractions-in-the-world-cam-1-40.htm
Lesson 3. Where in the world?
Communication goal: To express reasons and describe trends correctly.
Giving reasons, describing trends
Reasons
There are several ways of giving a reason for something: because, because of, to, for, in
case.
• I’m in London because I’m going to a university reunion.
because + subject + verb
• The flight was delayed because of fog.
because of + noun
• We went to Berlin for my sister’s wedding.
for + noun
• They’re in New York to attend a conference.
to + infinitive verb
In case refers to a reason that might happen.
• We are leaving early in case there are delays. (=because there might be delays)
•
These expressions are often used in response to the following types of questions.
• Why are you travelling to Madrid?
• What’s the reason for the delay?
• What’s the purpose of the supplement?
•
Describing trends
We can describe current and past trends by using different tenses.
Present Continuous describes a current trend.
• People are taking more diverse holidays.
= subject + is/are + verb -ing
Present Perfect describes a trend that began in the past and which continues up to the
present.
• Independent holidays have become more popular.
= subject + has / have + past participle
Past Simple describes a trend that ended in the past.
• The country’s revenue form tourism increased.
= subject + past form
It is common to use a time phrase with the different tenses to show what period of time
we are referring to. These often go at the beginning of the sentence.
• Present continuous: nowadays, today
o Nowadays, fewer people are using travel agents.
• Present perfect: since+past point in time, so far, up to now
o Since 1999, the number of holidays booked online has increased each
year.
• Past simple: dates, periods of time in the past.
o Between 1985 and 1998, Spain’s revenue from package tourism dropped.
Adverbs of degree
We often use an adverb of degree to show how quickly or slowly trends develop. These
include:
Slowly / gradually / steadly : strongly / sharply / dramatically
• Online bookings have increased dramatically over the past five years.
Vocabulary
• Beach
• Swimming
• Shark-fishing
• Sailing
• Safari
• Eating out
• Hiking
• Mountain climbing
• Culture
• Golf
• Camel ride
Lesson 4. Tourism motivation
Communication goal: To know about the changes face of tourism.
Reading
Travel motivation
• Travel is simply a form of behavior that satisfies fundamental human needs.
• Rest and relaxation has ceased to be a baseline travel motivation for
contemporary consumers.
• Althought a person may want satisfaction for needs, no action will be taken until
that person is motivated.
Bibliography
• Robin Walker and Keith Harding, Oxford English for careers – Tourism I 2010
Oxford
• https://blog.lingoda.com/en/how-to-describe-places-in-english/
• https://usefulenglish.ru/miscellany/countries-and-cities
• https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-visited-countries
• https://www.planetware.com/world/top-rated-tourist-attractions-in-the-world-cam-1-
40.htm
