Andi
italki Student Activity - Tourism in Your City I live in Spain, though I am in fact a British citizen. I never used to notice tourists when I lived in my own country, or if I did, I thought it they were wonderful people. Most are. Most tourists travel to try new food, perhaps speak a few words of a foreign language, see the monuments and explore our cities. But now and again you’ll see a bad tourist, someone who is rude or arrogant, who doesn’t respect the local culture, and seems to treat the local people as second class citizens. Often the worst behaviour from tourists isn’t actually bad behaviour, it is instead simply that they walk around in large groups and block other people from getting around. Human behaviour is strange. When we walk alone we can be very considerate of others and make sure we leave space for other people to use the sidewalk (footpath or pavement). But in large groups we’re like a herd of elephants trampling everything in our path. In the photo, you’ll notice a group of tourists admiring a statue outside a bullring (in Ronda, Spain), and they’re listening to their guide who is using a loudspeaker so that the group can hear him. Other tourists would have trouble taking a photo of the statue because of this group. Beginner/Intermediate Activity: 1) Think about tourists who come to your city, and write 20 words to describe them. 2) Can you write five sentences about the way they behave in your town? 3) What do you like about tourists? What do you dislike about tourists? Write a short paragraph (30-50 words) explaining what you like and dislike about tourists. Advanced Activity: 1) Write a report (Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion) of 200 words about tourists in your town, and give suggestions for improving their experience and also avoiding the worst problems that tourism creates. 2) Imagine you are the mayor of your town and tourism is a significant industry economically, but you need €1,000,000 from your regional government to improve services for tourists in town, including the construction of a backpackers hostel for young travellers. Write a business letter to the regional president stating your case.
Oct 17, 2014 2:47 PM
Corrections · 2

There are no tourists in my city. At least I usually don't see crowds of people on our streets. Rarely a few buses come at the biggest park and people just walk around. They don't throng like a herd. They are quiet and mostly senior.

People don't join a crowd themselves. Usually guides collect many people and lead them through a city. Larger the crowd means larger the profit. It's just a bussiness. Although they could tour through a city by different way. They could split sightseers into small groups and send them to diverse places. But there are disadvantages in case of small towns which have only one point of interest. And it would bring more problems for travel agencies because they would need to hire more guides and solve more logistic troubles.

What if a town's administration forbade travel agency from bringing more than 7 people at once? Probably, visiting that town would become more expensive for tourists or they would need to wait until other groups go away. In any case such a town would fall from favour with visitors and lose money.

We all know that tourists waste a lot of money: they buy souvenirs, food, tickets for transport and for some entertainments or shows (for examples, for bull's fights). They use public lavatories, buy umbrellas or sunglasses. Many people think they have to buy some clothes and then drag them back home. It doesn't matter that these clothes were made in China. Finally, they all need to live somewhere and they rent rooms in hotels. So, tourists are very powerfull source of profit for every town's economy and any administration should involve people in its town as much as possible.

Why do people behave like that? Why do they bring problems for locals and for other visitors? Several problems can be solved simply. For example, excursionists should use radio-guides instead of loudspeakers. But what about rudeness and arrogant manners? I think the reasons are an impunity and a herd instinct. Everybody's sure that he or she is situated for a short time in a town and nobody will follow and point the finger at him or her. This feeling is supported by other member's behaviour.

Tourist's breeding is a very complicated issue and I have no answer how to make it more agreeable.

October 23, 2014
Here's the link to the entry I wrote about tourism:) http://www.italki.com/entry/482955
October 19, 2014
Want to progress faster?
Join this learning community and try out free exercises!