Vocabulary

1 flood – изобилие, избыток; множество

2 old-fashioned – несовременный, старомодный

3 to convert into – превращать

4 genuine – истинный, подлинный

5 to assume – принимать, брать на себя

6 huge – огромный

7 to lease – сдавать внаем, в аренду; брать внаем, в аренду

8 to withdraw – забирать; отзывать

9 parking lot – место стоянки автотранспорта

10 gambling – азартная игра; игра на деньги

11 condominium – совладение

12 joint – совместный

13 obvious – очевидный, явный, ясный

14 remaining – остальной

15 quarter – место

Before the age of railroads, travelers stayed at Inns in the country or in small hotels-most of them family-owned-in the towns and cities. The first big hotels with hundreds of rooms were built in the vicinity of railroad terminals to serve the flood of new passengers. These new hotels were more impersonal than the old-fashioned fam­ily-style inn or hotel. Indeed, they were usually organized as corporations in what we would now consider a more businesslike manner. A wide variety of accommodations is available to the modern tourist. They vary from the guest house or tourist home with one or two rooms to grand luxury hotels with hundreds of rooms.

Many people travel to Europe because of its rich historical and cultural heritage. As a result, many old homes and castles have been converted into small hotels. American travel magazines often carry advertisements for holidays in "genuine European castles." Many old inns have also been restored to serve people with similar romantic tastes.

The major trend in the hotel industry today, however, is toward the large corporate-operated hotel. Many of these hotels might well be described as "packaged." A number of large companies have assumed a dominant place in the hotel industry. The biggest is Holiday Inns has 274,000 rooms. Others that operate on a worldwide basis are Sheraton, Inter-Continental, Trust Houses Forte, Hilton International, and Ramada Inns.

Ownership of these hotel companies is an indication of their importance to the travel industry as a whole. Hilton International is owned by Trans World Airlines, and Inter-Continental by Pan American Airways; Sheraton is a subsidiary of the huge multinational corporation, ITT. Many other airlines and travel companies have also entered the hotel business, and some of the tour operators, especially in Europe, own or operate hotels.

Some of the hotel corporations operate on a franchise basis; that is, the hotel and its operation are designed by the corporation, but the right to run it is sold or leased. The operator then pays a percentage to the parent corporation. His franchise can be withdrawn, however, if he does not maintain the standards that have been established. Other hotel companies serve primarily as managers. Large, modern hotels contain not only guest rooms, but many other facilities as well. They usually contain restaurants and cocktail lounges, shops, and recreational facilities such as swimming pool or health clubs. Many hotels also have facilities for social functions, conventions, and conferences-ballrooms, auditoriums, meeting rooms of different sizes, exhibit areas, and so forth. Not so long ago, convention facilities were ordinarily found only in large cities or in intensively developed resort areas like Miami Beach. Nowadays, they are more often included in resort hotels so that the people who attend conventions there can combine business with pleasure.

Another modern development in the hotel business is the motel, a word made up from motor and hotel. The motel might best be described as a place that has accommodations both for automobiles and human beings. The typical motel is a low structure around which is built a parking lot to enable the guests to park their cars as close as possible to their rooms. In urban areas, a large garage takes the place of the parking lot.

Another trend in the hotel industry is the construction of the self-contained resort complex. This consists of a hotel and recreational facilities, all of which in effect are isolated from the nearby community. Casinos, wherever they are legal, are another feature of some hotels. In Las Vegas, Nevada, the hotels are really secondary to gambling. They feed, house, and entertain the guests, but the real profits come from the casinos.

Still another trend in resort accommodations is condominium construction. The condominium is a building or group of buildings in which individuals purchase separate units. At the same time they become joint owners of the public facilities of the structure and its grounds and recreational areas. The condominium has become popu­lar because of the desire of many people to own a second home for vacations. Indeed, many of the owners maintain their condominiums just for this purpose. Others, however, make arrangements whereby they can rent their space when they are not occupying it. It is an obvious attraction for someone who has only a month's vacation a year to be able to make an income from his property for the remaining eleven months. Many owners make enough money in rentals to pay for the purchase price and the maintenance costs of the condominium.

Caravanning and camping reflect another trend in modern tourism, thanks in large part to the automobile. Cars variously called caravans, vans, or campers come equipped with sleeping quarters and even stoves and refrigerators. They are in effect small mobile homes, or at least hotel rooms. A similar kind of arrangement exists for boat owners who wish to use their boats for accommodations while they are traveling in them. This involves the marina, a common feature of resort areas on waterways.

Text work

1. Give English equivalents for the following Russian words and word-combinations

1. историческое и культурное наследие

2. жильё

3. реклама путешествий

4. условия для проживания

5. объединять бизнес и отдых

6. отражать современные тенденции

7. быть оборудованным

8. акционерные общества

9. курорт

10. старомодная гостиница в семейном стиле

2. Find synonyms to the following words from the text

1. out-of-date

2. dwelling

3. to run

4. enjoyment

5. progress

6. to give opportunity

7. to propose

3. Match the given words with definitions

Inn 1) printed notice about things to be sold or things that are needed

Hotel 2) a public house where travelers may eat and

drink

Heritage 3) what is or may be inherited; anything which

comes to a person by right of birth, whether a

burden or a benefit

Resort 4) a place visited frequently or by large numbers,

as a seaside (health, summer)

Casino 5) a public room or building for music, dancing,

entertainments and gambling

Convention 6) a large building where travelers may get meals and lodging

Advertisement 7) a meeting or number of meetings, arranged for

a special purpose to discuss political, religious

or educational affairs

4. Read and translate the following groups of words derived from a common root

1 To regulate-regulation-regulative-regulator

2 To accommodate-accommodating-accommodation

3 To personalize-personal-impersonal-personality

5. Answer the questions

1 What is accommodation market composed of?

2 What does the successful operation of a hotel depend on?

3 Why does accommodation play significant role in tourism?

4 What are the new trends in accommodation business?

Text 2. Hotels

Scan the text and follow the changes that took place in the development of hotels.

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging, usually on a short-term basis. Hotels often provide a number of additional guest services such as a restaurant, a swimming pool or childcare. Some hotels have conference services and meeting rooms and encourage groups to hold conventions and meetings at their location.

The word hotel derives from the French hôtel, which referred to a French version of a townhouse or any other building seeing frequent visitors, not a place offering accommodation. The French spelling was once also used in English, but is now rare.

Basic accommodation of a room with only a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with en-suite bathrooms and, more commonly in the United States than elsewhere, climate control. Other features found may be a telephone, an alarm clock, a TV, and broadband Internet connectivity. Food and drink may be supplied by a mini-bar (which often includes a small refrigerator) containing snacks and drinks (to be paid for on departure), and tea and coffee making facilities (cups, spoons, an electric kettle and sachets containing instant coffee, tea bags, sugar, and creamer or milk). Some hotels offer various combinations of meals as part of a room and board arrangement.

In the United Kingdom a hotel is required by law to serve food and drinks to all comers within certain stated hours; to avoid this requirement it is not uncommon to come across "private hotels" which are not subject to this requirement.

The cost and quality of hotels are usually indicative of the range and type of services available. Due to the enormous increase in tourism worldwide during the last decades of the 20th century, standards, especially those of smaller establishments, have improved considerably. For the sake of greater comparability, rating systems have been introduced, with the one to five stars classification being most common. The star classification system is a common one for rating hotels. Higher star ratings indicate more luxury. The AAA and their affiliated bodies use diamonds instead of stars to express hotel and restaurant ratings levels.

Hotels are independently assessed in traditional systems and rest heavily on the facilities provided. Some consider this disadvantageous to smaller hotels whose quality of accommodation could fall into one class but the lack of an item such as an elevator would prevent it from reaching a higher categorization. In some countries, there is an official body with standard criteria for classifying hotels, but in many others there is none. There have been attempts at unifying the classification system so that it becomes an internationally recognized and reliable standard but large differences exist in the quality of the accommodation and the food within one category of hotel, sometimes even in the same country.