2. Read the interview, translate it into Russian using a dictionary in writing.

I.

George, you've been working for one of Europe's largest tour operators for the past twenty years. Can you tell us what familiarization trips are?

G.W.

Well, the familiarization trip or "fam trip," as it is commonly known means different things to different people. Basically, for us, it is an opportunity for the people who sell our holidays to get to know our hotels and resorts better. We, as a tour operator, get together with an airline, the relevant national tourist office, and one or more of our hotels to construct a trip for the employees of the travel agencies that we're dealing with. They will be staying in our hotels, which, we hope, they will then recommend to their customers. Now, in the past this was really often seen as a chance for, basically, a cheap holiday. You stayed in a nice hotel, met a few people and had a good time. Not much work was done. It was considered a kind of freebie.

I.

But not any more?

G.W.

Well, I think those days have long gone. In the current economic climate, everyone is looking for value for money. No one's got money to throw around. Organizations invest in fam trips in the hope of securing extra business. In the past, we simply saw familiarization trips as a kind of reward. These days, that's still important but we emphasize much more the learning or the "educational" side. Of course, we want people to have fun* but we need to see a return for our money. We want to make sure they go away with a good knowledge of our resorts and hotels. Any agency employee who comes on one of our fam trips is given a questionnaire to fill in-while they are staying in the hotel, and we always ask for a report to be written afterwards. In that sense they're educational.

I.

You said earlier that fam trips were an opportunity for people to meet each other, but isn't it true that it's always the same kind of company that gets invited on fam trips – by that I mean the big ones?

G.W.

Well, yes and no. Clearly we cannot send every employee in every agency on a familiarization trip. The important thing is to reward customer loyalty. So then we'll ask a good agency to send along a member of staff who has probably never stayed in one of our hotels before and see exactly what our hotels have to offer. Naturally, popular agencies sell more of our holidays, so more of their employees will go on our fam trips.

I.

Right. So it's a question of how popular a travel agency is?

G.W.

Yes, but then there are the new-product educational trips. They may be quite different. Maybe our new hotels will appeal to travel agents that we don't do much, or even any, business with. When we have new hotels we wish to promote, we have to calculate which agencies to approach. Then we do deals with smaller agencies. All businesses need to evolve, so we can't just use the same hotels or the same travel agencies year after year.

I.

So who pays for fam trips?

G.W.

Well, as I said: tour operators, transportation companies, such as airlines, but also coach companies and ferry operators and the hotels themselves. We actually charge the agencies something for sending people along. That way agencies themselves become more concerned about getting value for money. We don't charge much, mind, or we wouldn't get anyone who was interested.

I.

Right. Will you be sending people out soon?

G.W.

Not right now, but we'll be sending people out in May, nearer the high season. Then by June we'll have arranged some more trips for the end of the summer, when we're not so busy. We also try to make sure that we send people-who are in more or less the same positions in their firms. We don't usually have junior staff and senior management together, for example. They might feel a bit uncomfortable.

I.

Right. Well, thanks very much.