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