5042

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9.What kind of tours do travel agencies offer?

10.What kind of separate tourist services do travel agencies offer?

11.What kind of travel agencies are there?

12.What kind of companies are tourist information offices?

13.What kind of advice do tourist information office clerks give?

14.What do tourist information office clerks do?

15.Why do tourist information office clerks fluently speak foreign languages?

16.What kind of manuals for travellers are there in tourist information offices?

17.What is an outlet? What sort of tourist outlets are there?

18.Where are travel agency outlets located?

19.What kind of customers does a travel agency outlet at a factory or in an office building serve?

20.What does it mean that all travel agency outlets provide the same services?

21.What does a tourist outlet clerk do?

22.How does an outlet clerk get to know all the up-to-date information?

23.What people are called free-lancers?

24.How and when do free-lancers work?

25.What are some of the free-lance jobs?

26.What companies employ animators?

27.What kind of companies employ guides, guides-interpreters and escorts?

28.What do travel writers do?

29.What does it mean that free-lancers are registered?

30.What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a freelancer?

10.State whether the following statements are true or false. Comment on the true statements and correct the false ones.

1.Tour operators promote the tours they put together.

2.There are no tour operators which operate like travel agencies.

3.American Express Company is the oldest tour operator in the world.

4.Travel agencies are retail tourist companies which work directly with the public.

5.Travel agents don’t make individual travel arrangements.

6.Travel agencies never sell travel insurance to customers.

7.Travel agencies that are members of a chain don’t belong to the same company.

8.The clerks of tourist information offices give advice to customers on car hire, sightseeing tours, accommodation, flights and so on.

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9.The clerk of tourist information office doesn’t speak foreign languages.

10.Travel companies don’t have outlets within a city.

11.The clerk in a tourist outlet keeps in touch with the head office.

12.Free-lancers work full-time for a tourist company.

13.Tourist companies don’t employ free-lancers for seasonal work.

14.Travel agencies which deal with outgoing tourism employ guides, guidesinterpreters, escorts.

15.Free-lancers don’t pay taxes.

16.Free-lancers earn a lot of money in high season and don’t earn any money in off-season.

11.Make a summary of the text.

Part 2

The Role of Tour Operator

1. Read the article and find the answers.

1.Package holidays are created by tour operators and then sold through the chain of distribution.

a)What are the components of a typical package holiday?

b)Who else forms part of the chain of distribution?

c)How many different types of tour operator are there?

2.There are two other terms that mean the same as package holiday. What are they?

3.To buy in bulk means to buy something

a)on the Internet

b)in large quantities

c)in secret

d)a long time before you need to use it.

4.Why is it important to buy in bulk in tour operation?

5.Why do you think specialists prefer to sell direct to their clients?

6.If you could work for one of the types of tour operator, which would you choose?

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PUTTING A PACKAGE TOGETHER

Package holidays, which are also known as package tours, include all of the components necessary for a complete vacation:

-transport to and from the destination

-transfers between the airport / station / port and hotel

-food and accommodation at the destination

-other services such as a guide or holiday ‘rep’.

The professionals who bring these elements together to create a holiday are called tour operators. They buy in advance and in bulk from the principles: airlines, shipping lines, hoteliers, and so on. Because they buy hundreds of seats or rooms from the principle, they pay a much lower price from them than an ordinary member of the public. The tour operator then converts this bulk into individual packages known technically as inclusive tours (ITs). These are marketed to the customer through travel agents or by other systems.

In the past tour operators sold almost entirely through travel agents, but today they also use direct selling. This strategy eliminates the travel agents from the chain of distribution, and this reduces the final cost of the holiday package because direct sell operators do not have to pay commission to a travel agent. Many smaller our operators, for example, prefer to deal with their clients.

Not all tour operators sell the same type of holiday. The really bid operators, the mass market operators, produce low-cost holidays to traditional sea, sun, and sand destinations like Spain, Greece, or Turkey. Other operators limit their product to customers who want a very specific type of holiday. These special operators sell adventure holidays, holidays for single people, holidays for motor-racing fans, and so on. Domestic operators specialize in tours for people who want to holiday in their own country, whilst incoming tour operators are specialists in providing holiday package to visitors coming from abroad. For example, “Vastravel”, an Italian incoming tour operator, sells tours of Italy to people from the rest of the world.

PRINCIPLES

TRANSPORTATION + TRANSFERS + ACCOMMODATION +

OTHER SERVICES

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2. Answer the questions.

1.Who are the biggest tour operators in your country or your region?

2.Which are the most popular destinations they offer?

3.Which are the new destinations this year?

4.Do tour operators in your country only sell through travel agents or do they sell direct?

5.Are there any specialist tour operators in your country?

6.What type of specialist holiday do they market?

3. Read and translate the dialogue between a tour operator (O) and the General Manager (M) of the Sheraton Hotel.

M Have you enjoyed your look over the hotel?

O Just fine. Now let us talk a little more in detail about possible arrangements? M By all means. First, what about a drink of some sort? Gin, whisky, martini? O I'll take a gin and tonic, please.

M Certainly. Right. Here you are. O Thank you. Cheers.

M Let me see. Here's our normal tariff. Take a look. O OK. These are all rack rates. Right?

M That's right.

O And I guess you're interested in American Plan or modified American Plan?

M Of course. If you only want Continental Plan then the hotel gets used less, and there's less in it for us.

O Well, there are different ways we could approach this. We could look at the total demand for accommodation over the year and fix a price, or maybe negotiate a number of different prices according to the time of the year.

M Of course, but let's take one step at a time. What kind of numbers are we talking about? O Well. We're going to sell the tour April through October. We would hope for fortyfive people weekly in the earlier part of the season, doubling that figure during the high season, then falling back to forty-five again.

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M And for how many nights? O That's four nights.

M Is that mid-week? Weekends?

O To take advantage of our flight arrangements, it would be Friday through Tuesday. M I see. Tell me what kind of guarantees you are offering on the arrangement.

O We're not prepared to make any guarantees at all. M None at all? No deposits?

O No. No money up front at all.

M That's rather a lot to ask of any hotelier.

O Come on, Mr. Brown. This is not unusual. And you are dealing with a company with a good name that usually sells what it targets.

M I accept that. But don't you see the risks involved?

O We are in business. Besides, there would be a three-month release-back clause in the contract.

M I don't know. I mean 90 beds during all the high season weekends. O That's a lot.

M Yes. And so is forty-five in May and September. O Certainly. But I have to think of my regular trade.

M It's beginning to look as if you are not too interested in doing business. No, no. I didn't say that. It's just that not long after the hotel had opened we had a rather bad experience with this kind of block booking. It depends who you are dealing with, Mr. Brown. Let me put it this way. For the kind of business we have in mind I think average discount in the region of 15 to 20% is.

Vocabulary notes on the dialogue

deposit – задаток up front – заранее

rack rates – текущие расценки

American Plan – проживание в гостинице на полном пансионе

Continental Plan – проживание в гостинице на полупансионе (с завтраком)

Look through the dialogue and find in it the English equivalents for the following Russian phrases.

Получать удовольствие от осмотра; подробно поговорить о чём-либо; текущие цены; договариваться в ходе переговоров о цене; в самом начале сезона;

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воспользоваться преимуществами; иметь печальный опыт работы с кем-либо; статья в договоре о предельном сроке для отказа – 3 месяца; от зарезервированных номеров в отеле; резервирование мест на целую группу.

Read the previous dialogue once again and try to find out the main points in the tour operator's inquiry.

Make up your own dialogue on the basis of the above one.

4. Define what the work of a tour operator is. Use the following words and wordcombinations:

Wholesaler of the tourist industry; to put together packaged tour (tour package); to have close ties with charter airlines and hotel chains; to arrange tours for (employees and their spouses); to be welcomed by; two general types of tours (holiday package, guided tour); the major attractions include; to be in charge of travel arrangements and activities; to get considerable savings; to offer the price inducements; an opportunity to make all travel arrangements in one place at one time; a possibility to visit many remote areas; to see on one's own.

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UNIT 4

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISM

Read the text and answer the questions.

People started travelling long ago. The first travellers were nomads and pilgrims, merchants and traders. They travelled along rivers, lakes and seas. The first travellers used simple means of travelling: boats and ferries on the water and camels in the desert.

The most famous travellers were explorers. Among them were Marco Polo from Venice in the 13th century, Afanasy Nikitin from Russia, Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama from Portugal in the 15th century, Magellan from Spain, Amerigo Vespucci from Italy in the 16th century, James Cook from England in the 18th century and other adventurers from Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, England and Holland. They made journeys to Asia, Africa and America.

Travel grew and developed as long as means of transport kept on growing.

With the 19th century the age of modern trains came. In the late 19th century the first motor-cars appeared.

The age of airplanes changed travel crucially. In the early 20th century jet planes emerged. They made air travel available to all people. Air travel is the fastest and the most convenient mode of travelling. No place in the world is more than 24 hours away by jet. Passengers eat, sleep, watch movies, listen to music on airplanes.

In the 19th century tourism was mainly for the rich. They had enough money and spare time for travelling.

Not many working people in Europe had paid holidays.

Well-to-do people used to take tours to France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. They spent time at famous sea resorts in France. They went to health resorts and spas of Germany for recreation and treatment. They travelled to the resorts in the mountains of Switzerland and Austria.

In the early 19th century tourists used to travel by trains and steamships.

In the first half of the 19th century steamships used to move within inland

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waterways only. But in the second half of the century they started covering longer distances. The steamships carried passengers on all oceans and seas of the world.

Thomas Cook Company is the oldest travel company in the world. As a matter of fact, Thomas Cook from England opened the age of organized tourism.

It started in 1841 when Thomas Cook arranged the first trip for 570 Englishmen by railway. In 1843 Thomas Cook organized the first group tour by train. This time he provided tourists with meals and tickets for the races. So it was the first package tour.

Later on Thomas Cook made arrangements for organized visits to the First International Industrial Exhibition. The Exhibition opened in London in 1851. The tourists came from different parts of England.

All those were domestic tours. However, Thomas Cook decided not to stick to domestic tourism within his country only. Four years later, in 1855 he arranged the first overseas trip. It was a tour to the Exhibition in Paris. After that regular tourist trips started to other countries of Europe.

Thomas Cook continued expanding his travel business. In 1866 he arranged the first trip of two groups of Englishmen to the USA. Thomas Cook set up the first travel agency.

By the end of the 19th century the company had its offices all over the world including Australia and New Zealand, selling millions of tickets and excursions.

In the 20th century the company changed its owners many times.

The present-day name of the company is Thomas Cook Group PLC. It is still very active on the travel market. It is both a tour operator and a travel agency.

Tourism is global nowadays. Tourist boom started in the 1960s.

In 1963 the United Nations conference on international travel and tourism took place in Rome.

The General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 1967 as the Year of International Tourism.

In 1975 the United Nations established the World Tourism Organization (WTO). It emerged on the basis of the International Union of Official Tourist Organizations. The World Tourism Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations.

In 2005 the WTO General Assembly adopted the initials UNWTO in English and ЮНВТО in Russian. Before that there used to be a mix-up over WTO as the World Tourism Organization and WTO as the World Trade Organization.

UNWTO is the international intergovernmental organization. Actually, it is a worldwide group of government travel organizations. It deals with promoting tourism throughout the world. It assists countries in the development of national tourism.

The supreme body of UNWTO is the General Assembly. It holds its sessions every two