МІНІСТЕРСТВО ОСВІТИ І НАУКИ УКРАЇНИ

Національний університет «Запорізька політехніка»

Факультет міжнародного туризму та економіки

Кафедра іноземних мов професійного спілкування

Контрольна робота з дисципліни

Ділова іноземна мова за професійним спрямуванням

(англійська)

для студентів спеціальності

Туризм

9 семестр 5 курс

Варіант 2

Виконав: студент(ка) групи № МТУз

_______________________

Перевірив: ________________________

Запоріжжя

1. READING, LEARNING, SPEAKING

1. Прочитайте і підготуйте переказ тексту. Напишіть 8 запитань до тексту.

The current state of tourism

Tourism may be defined as the science, art and business of attracting and transporting people, accommodating them, and catering to their needs and wants. As an industry, tourism is a dynamic, evolving, consumer-driven force.

What is the state of tourism today? The answer is simple – growth. The global tourism industry is growing steadily at a rate of around six per cent per year. The basic measure for this is international tourist arrivals. Since 1990, the number of international tourist arrivals has risen from 439 million to around a billion, or about six and a half per cent annually. Before that, from 1950 to 1990, the figure had risen from 25 million to 439 million.

The simple fact is that more and more people want to travel to more and more places. The attractions of computers and the virtual world haven’t reduced this. Back in the 1980s, some people thought that with the growth of computer technology, business travel would decline, but this hasn’t happened – in fact it’s expanded because there’s no substitute for face-to-face transactions, especially in a globalized economy. This has been helped by the fact that the relative cost of travel has fallen.

Let’s now look at a few developments behind those statistics – destinations and types of holiday, for example. In Europe established destinations like France, Spain, and Italy are being challenged by newer destinations offering cost advantages, such as Bulgaria and Croatia. On top of this, new shorter break destinations are emerging in the market. But more importantly, though still the region with the most international arrivals; Europe is beginning to lose its dominance of the tourism industry. Tourism in Asia – both as a destination and a generator of tourists – is growing dramatically. Since 1990, the number of tourist arrivals in Asia has gone up by nearly 400%. That’s something that wasn’t really predicted in the 1980s. At that time, people were expecting growth to come from Europe and America.

Another development is that the mass tourism of the 1950 to 1980 period has fallen, and given way to more independent specialist holidays. Yet, ironically, independent travel and backpacking has itself become characterized by ‘mass tendencies’ with a whole industry now developing to support it – from gap year tour companies to backpacker insurance policies and backpacker hotels.

Let’s have a look at the most dramatic development of all – computers and the Internet. The Internet has led to a revolution in the tourism and travel industry. On the one hand, it has resulted in a new type of independent consumer, who looks everything online. But on the other hand, even within the travel industry, the internet is emerging as the key distribution source. What this means is that the industry can reach customers directly, and as a result the role of the retail agent is declining.

At the same time, the big travel companies have fully embraced this new technology, whilst continuing to buy shares in other tourism-based companies, giving them even greater dominance in the market place. So what’s happening is that the big companies are getting bigger at the same time as more and more small specialist companies are emerging

In the second half of the 20^th, concern for the environmental impact of travel and tourism gradually increased. Some believed the jet aircraft would be replaced by space travel, that trains and cruise ships would use alternative fuel sources, that underwater leisure centres would be built – all with the hope of reducing the environmental impact of our industry. Well, these things haven’t happened. In fact, the number of flights by jet aircraft has increased sharply, particularly with the emergence of the low-cost airlines. The consequence is that we still have these concerns to deal with – and this will be something we come back to later on.

Write complete sentences from the notes. Change the form of the verb if necessary.

1. business travel / expand / in recent years

2. low-cost airlines / emerge / late twentieth century

3. currently / more and more people / take / short-haul flights

4. number of flights by jet aircraft / increase / sharply / 21^st century

5. increase in air travel / lead to / worries about environmental impact

6. internet / mean / more people book online / nowadays

7. as / result / number of specialist tour operators / increase / last twenty years

8. underwater leisure cities / not appear / yet

2. Read and summarize the text. Explain the words in bold type.

Quality in tourism

The success of package holidays of the 1960s – 90s was based on volume. Tour operators bought in bulk so as to tempt customers with low prices. During the 90s, however, it became clear that to be competitive, companies had to offer quality as well as quantity.

Broadly speaking, a product offers quality when it meets the customer’s expectations. This places the customer at the centre of any attempt to provide quality in tourism. In sharp contrast to mass tourism in the 60s – 90s, where the product was the focus of attention. To satisfy the customer’s expectations, companies need quality standards, which can be set externally by bodies such as ISO (International Standards Organisation) or internally by the company’s own quality assurance techniques. Common techniques today include:

1. performance standards – lists of processes and tasks that employees have to perform and the levels of service expected of the employees when they perform them;

2. benchmarking – comparing the company’s performance to that of companies in the same field that already have a high reputation;

3. appraisal – an interview in which a manager and an employee evaluate the employee’s previous performance before setting performance objectives for the future;

4. focus groups – groups of customers that are brought together to discuss different aspects of the holiday or travel experience.

Complaints were once seen as a sign of failure. Today they are viewed as a key way of improving performance and quality. No product is perfect, and to improve it, a company needs feedback, the information obtained from customers by recording comments, suggestions, and complaints. Complaints can be spoken or written, and in general the former are easier to handle. With a written complaint:

there is no chance to remedy the problem;

it is not always easy to verify the details of the incident that led to

the complaint;

the text can be used as evidence in legal proceedings;

the linguistic demands are usually higher.

It is no longer enough just to find an immediate solution to a problem (reactive thinking). Today companies expect proactive thinking. That is to say that after solving a problem the member of staff should go on to find out why it happened and what changes can be made to make sure the problem does nor recur.

3. Read and translate the text. Write 6 questions to the text.

Social tourism

Although tourism seems to be the most natural of activities to many people around the world today, to many others it seems an almost impossible dream. This leaves large sections of society unable to benefit from tourism even in countries in the developed world. The programmes and measures carried out by both public and private sector groups in order to help those that are marginalized in this way are jointly known as social tourism. Marginalization typically affects:

1. the young, families, single-parent families, and the unemployed, who all lack the financial means to travel;

2. disabled people, who can suffer mobility, hearing, visual, or mental impairment;

3. elderly people, who may lack the necessary finance, or suffer problems of age-related disability, or a combination of both.

The origins of social tourism are often associated with the policies the Belgian government put in place after the Second World War to facilitate tourism for the young and for families. Similar policies were being implemented at the same time, however, by the government and the Catholic church in Argentina. Possibly the earliest organised attempts at organized social tourism date back to the work of the state and the trade unions in Russia, where paid holidays were a right from 1918. In 1988, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, 42 million USSR citizens benefited from these programmes.

The international non-profit association BITS (the International Bureau of Social Tourism) has worked since its foundation in 1963 to favour ‘the development of social tourism in the international framework’. To do this it coordinates the tourist activities of member states, and promotes access to leisure, holidays, and tourism for marginalized groups.

For the tourism industry itself, social tourism brings a number of benefits. In Spain, for example, the heavy seasonality of the Mediterranean resorts is compensated for by offering accommodation and other resort facilities at reduced prices in the low season. Government-backed programmes for the elderly take advantage of these off-season tariffs, and hotel employees benefit from an extended season.

The recent boom in low-cost travel is seen by some as another step towards making tourism available to everybody, but some critics argue that such cheap transport only serves to transport the social problems of richer nations to dumping grounds in the cities and on the beaches of (usually) poorer countries in the same area.

4. Read and retell the text.

Events management

A village festival, an agricultural show, a teachers’ conference, or the Olympic Games – big or small, local or international, all of these are events, a growing and important area of tourism. Events show two defining characteristics:

* they occur infrequently – the Olympic Games is once every four years, village festivals once a year – or even only once (called a ‘one-off’ event);

* they are a chance for people to enjoy their leisure time or for business people to meet.

Events management is the process of planning, organizing, coordinating, directing, and evaluating an event in order to see how it went, and determine to what extent its objectives have been met. Event objectives vary greatly. Public sector events often seek to raise awareness of a city or region that does not have a very high tourist profile. Such events do not generally attempt to make a profit. An exception to this is a product launch, where a company makes a first public presentation of a new product. This can be done at a trade fair, at the company’s headquarters, or in a specially rented space.

Effective planning is vital to the success of any event, and can include any or all of the following:

• creating an organizing committee;

• determining the event’s objectives;

• deciding on a venue;

• elaborating timescales (the sequence of activities and processes leading up to and occurring during the event itself);

• setting deadlines;

• elaborating budgets;

• elaborating the success of the event.

Most events are static and take place in a city or in prepared space in the country. Some events, such as rock or pop concerts, will move from one place to another. This is often referred to as a roadshow.

In the business world, MICE (Meetings, Incentive tours, Conferences, Exhibitions) provide events organizers with a constant supply of work. In the tourism industry, familiarization trips (fam trips) are used to allow tour operators and travel agents to get to know different destinations that they might later promote or sell.

In events management, you need TEAMWORK:

T is for Training to practice and improve skills;

E is for Enthusiasm for the event and the team;

A is for Awareness of the tasks to be carried out and the needs of others;

M is for Motivation to meet the objectives and to help others in the team;

W is for Willingness to adapt to change and take decisions;

O is for Organizing yourself to undertake responsibilities;

R is for Recognition of the work of others in the team

K is for Knowing what is happening and keeping everyone informed.

II. READING and SPEAKING PRACTICE

1. Read the text and answer the questions.