World´s Worst Tourists

Is there any ideal tourist? 

How are tourists supposed to behave?

Should tourists be trained according to the country they are going to visit?

These are questions that came to my mind this morning after reading an article on the China Daily newspaper as I am living now in Beijing. According to a world classification of the worst badly behaved tourists, US tourists rank number 1 followed by Chinese tourists. Obviously this is a very questionable assertion but I thought it could be interesting to read the two online journals (Daily Mail, China Daily) in which this piece of news appears. 

Note: Please refrain from commenting on stereotypes or prejudices. Thanks.

Paris Syndrome

Have you ever heard about the Paris syndrome?

Some Japanese tourists suffer a shock when visiting Paris. Having idealized Paris as the perfect romantic European city for a long time, once in the city they feel disappointed with what they find.

A BBC article by Caroline Wyatt describes this situation as follows:

A dozen or so Japanese tourists a year have to be repatriated from the French capital, after falling prey to what's become known as "Paris syndrome". That is what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations. The experience can apparently be too stressful for some and they suffer a psychiatric breakdown. Around a million Japanese travel to France every year.Many of the visitors come with a deeply romantic vision of Paris - the cobbled streets, as seen in the film Amelie, the beauty of French women or the high culture and art at the Louvre.

The reality can come as a shock. An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures. But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger - the experience of their dream city turning into a nightmare can simply be too much. This year alone, the Japanese embassy in Paris has had to repatriate four people with a doctor or nurse on board the plane to help them get over the shock. They were suffering from "Paris syndrome". It was a Japanese psychiatrist working in France, Professor Hiroaki Ota, who first identified the syndrome some 20 years ago. On average, up to 12 Japanese tourists a year fall victim to it, mainly women in their 30s with high expectations of what may be their first trip abroad. The Japanese embassy has a 24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock, and can help find hospital treatment for anyone in need. However, the only permanent cure is to go back to Japan - never to return to Paris. To know more you can read the article on Msnbc.com Travel News. Have you ever experienced something similar to this in Paris or anywhere else? Please leave your comments.

Glamping: a new type of tourism

Recently I heard the word "glamping" related to a new type of tourism that is rising in popularity. What would you say if someone asks you, do you want to go glamping? Do you know what glamping is?

Well, gampling is the combination of two words "glamour" and "camping." If you like going camping, but you want to the comforts of a hotel, then you need to go glamping and not just camping. Some people are put off from doing camping because of the bugs, wild animals, sudden storms, leaking tents, uncomfortable sleeping bags and questionable food. But there is now a new camping option: glamping. Here the tourist is presented with amenities, stays in fashionable decorated tents with pleasant illumination as well as is provided with full-course meals.

Let´s have a look at the following video that illustrates this new type of niche tourism:

What do you prefer: camping or glamping?Please leave your comments

6 or 7- star hotel?

Until very recently, we thought a 5-star hotel was the highest classification in the hotel range but in the last couple of years some 6 and 7-star hotels have appeared in the tourism sector. Here you can find a list of this sort of hotels. Obvioulsy these hotels offer luxurious accommodation only within the reach of a few as most people can´t afford to stay in them.

But what do you think a 6 or 7-star hotel is? What can it offer that other hotels don´t? Please leave your comments.

Below I have included a video of one of those 7-star hotels built in Dubai:

Tourists Forbidden!

I have just come across this piece of news about a Colombian Amazon village banning the presence of tourists as they are disturbing their traditional way of life. Have a read and please, let us know what you think. This article should also make us reflect on being a responsible tourist and being an unnoticed presence wherever we go.

Who says flight safety instructions were dull?

Up to now passengers were used to flight attendants telling them about the flight safety instructions in a kind of robot-like performance, which many passengers found boring and therefore, didn´t pay much attention to. The traditional flight safety card was also often frequently ignored....

BUT

times seem to be changing and we are witnessing new creative ways to get passengers´ attention to important flight safety instructions. Let´s see these two entertaining ways to present such instructions:

So which approach do you prefer as a passenger the traditional or the creative one? Do you really think passengers pay more attention to flight safety instructions with the rap and the dancing? Please leave your comment.

A Bit of Role Playing

Role-Playing is an important practice when learning a language but it becomes even more relevant if we are teaching English with a specific purpose that implies dealing with specific situations, like in this case ENGLISH FOR TOURISM STUDIES.

In the last couples of weeks my second-year-Tourism students have been practicing situations in different contexts:
1. in a restaurant with a conversation between a waiter/waitress and a customer. It involved ordering at a restaurant and dealing successufully with problems during the meal.

2. in a campsite with a conversation between the campsite receptionist and the just-arrived camper: reservation, checking-in, etc.



Thanks to all my students for their cooperation and especially to Gonzalo, Silvia, Patricia and Ignacio. Remember all my students´videos are at http://www.youtube.com/user/Englishfortourism

48 hours in...

Very often tourists take what we call city break holidays in which they spend a couple of days in a well-known city. To be able to make the most of such a short visit, it is a must for the traveller to have a leaflet with tourist information for a city break visit. This is typically known as a 48 hour-in-a-city report. As a Tourism student you should know how to write this type of leaflet. It has to follow a certain pattern. Let´s see in the following document the parts a 48 hours-in-a-city report must have. This is just a basic example whose structure can be modified:

Open publication - Free publishing - More tourism

For examples, click here to read a 48 hours in San Francisco report and watch the following video about 48 hours in Singapore by Simon Calder from The Independent, who has a whole collection of 48hours in....

What about in your city? What would you recommend tourists to go and see if they only have 48 hours in your?

Are we culturally aware?

When travelling or working in the tourism sector, you are likely to meet different people of different cultures. Different cultures have different protocols. So it is very important to be aware of such differences so as to deal with people in a suitable way and not to create tense or offensive situations. What is considered appropriate behaviour in one culture can be inappropriate in another. When working with people from different cultures, you need a solid understanding of the norms of that culture.

It would be really interesting if you could share with us any cultural faux pas tourists or foreign people make while in your country. I will be waiting for your comments.

Here are two videos Gabriela, a teacher of English and Italian living in Paris, sent to me about this topic. Thanks Gabriela for sharing them with me: VIDEO 1, VIDEO 2

Also here are some pages you may find interesting:
http://www.culturosity.com/pdfs/What%20is%20Cultural%20Awareness.pdf
http://www.executiveplanet.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://chinafta.nzte.govt.nz/solutions/culture/business-etiquette.html
http://www.culturosity.com/articles.htm

Tourism stereotypes

Quite often professionals of the tourism sector (for example, tour operators, travel agencies, etc) tend to resort to cultural stereotypes to promote their tourists products but cultural stereotypes can be dangerous because they are too general (they do not distinguish between the different cultures or regions within the same country) and therefore they simplify the cultural richness of any country.

There are many stereotypical images of Spain, the country where I live. I found this postcard in a tourist spot in Seville a couple of weeks ago and it made me reflect upon the cultural image tourism sometimes conveys. This postcard, using the letters of "Spain", summarizes many stereotypes that are associated with Spain: bullfighting, olives, sun, wine, the letter ñ and flamenco dancing.

Is this the way foreigners see Spain? Do you think stereotypes give an accurate portray of a country? Which cultural stereotypes are typically associated with your country? I hope to hear from all of you as I am very interested in your comments. Thanks for your participation.

Picture by Mikel Urmeneta for kukuxumusu

Preparing a tourist presentation

This year like previous ones (see the post from last year), I asked my students to prepare a tourist presentation for their final project. It is very important to develop the skills involved with preparing a tourist presentation of a place in English as students could be asked to do so at any moment in their careers ,like for example: working for a Tourist Board or for a promotional tourist company, tour operator, etc. As a guidance, I gave students some basic instructions, which I have included below, and I chose Japan as the place they would make their presentation about because it is a long way away from Spain and students don´t know much about it. In this way, their project would give them the chance to get to know Japan a little better and to make an effort to present to others a country which they are not very familiar with.

Japan Assignment Instructions

These are two of the best final projects. You can also see them in our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/Englishfortourism:

I want to thank Juan José Murillo and Francisco Antonio Cañizares for their work as well as the rest of my students who also did a great job.

Our Own YouTube Channel

I hope you had a great summer. I wanted to start this new academic year opening our own YouTube channel called "English for Tourism" where all my students´ videos and work will be gathered so that anybody interested in English for Tourism can use them for educational purposes. The channel is still under construction as plenty more videos will be added. This is our channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Englishfortourism. You can also find the videos on the bottom right hand side of this blog. I would like to thank all my students for their work and collaboration as well as all the other people who participated in their work.

A Passenger Survey at an Airport.

Quite often students listen to situations in English related to tourism or they are asked to do some sort of role plays in the classroom in which they take roles they will have to assume when they start working in the tourism sector. Why not take students out of the classroom and to authentic places so that they can practice English in a real situation? That is why last May, aftert doing a listening about a passenger survey at an airport, we decided to carry out a passenger survey in a nearby airport, where students would have to use English to communicate. Thus, we ended up going to Faro airport (Portugal) which is one and a half hour from our town, Huelva, in the southwest of Spain. An example of the questions from the survey are included here although each student made slight variations:

Questions at the Airport

Below you can find a sample video of the work students did during a morning at Faro airport (Southern Portugal). If you want to see the rest of the videos students recorded carrying out passenger surveys, go to the right-hand side of the blog and you will find them in the section "My students´videos":

Here are some pictures that illustrate our trip to Faro airport in Portugal:

Celebrating Europe

This is the result of a writing forum I created for my students so as to celebrate Europe Day last May 9. They had to answer the question What does it mean to you to be European? And this is the word cloud I created from their answers.

If you would like to know more about Europe Day, click here.

Too fat to fly?

What about if you were charged twice for your plane ticket because of being obese? This controversial policy some North American airlines are starting to put into practice is being questioned by many people. These airlines often claim that a common complaint from their passengers is having to sit next to an obese person. Obviously this policy has its defenders and its detractors. Watch and listen to the following video and please give your opinion on this matter.

Asking Politely

When dealing with customers (tourists, guests, etc), it is very important to be polite to them so that they feel that they are being treated in a special way. Indirect Questions in English allow us to be able to ask certain questions while sounding more polite than if we asked using a simple direct question. Have a look at the following presentation in which you will find different expressions to begin using indirect questions.

Indirect Questions for Politeness

View more presentations from maochoa35.

Checking a schedule on the phone

Last week we did some oral practice about talking on the phone and checking information while on tour. Here you will find a role-play conversation between a tour guide (Miriam) and a hotel receptionist (Antonio).

The tour guide has the following information: arrive 13.00 (later than booked), non-smoking section, 16 pax, 2 vegetarian, no children.

The receptionist has this information: arrive 12.30, non-smoking section, 18 pax, no vegetarian meals booked, no children/high chairs.

Thanks Antonio and Miriam for your cooperation in class.

English For Tourism Vocabulary

Just a few weeks ago I saw a programme which I find ideal to present vocabulary in a way that is clear and easy to remember. Here there are some examples I created. I hope you find them useful! There is a trial version, click here to know more about it.

Pay Toilets in a Plane?

Can you imagine being charged for using the toilets on a flight?

Well...this is not far from happening. The Irish lowcost airline Ryanair is planning to do just that. Please read the article to find out a little bit more and watch the video to hear Ryanair´s Chief Executive´s reasons for this policy.

- What is your opinion on this?

- Can you make any sense of this policy?

I will be waiting for your comments

PODCASTING

Here are some of my students´ podcasts related to topics linked to tourism: reasons to travel, opinions on tipping, flying, etc. These podcasts are produced by my students through a voice forum in which they participate on a regular basis. Thanks to all of them for their participation and their interesting opinions.