10
Nov
2009
English for Tourism and Hospitality
Tourism and Hospitality
Tourism is travel for recreational or leisure purposes, defined by the World Tourism Organisation as people who travel and stay in places other than their normal environment, for more than 24 hours and less than one consecutive year, for the purpose of leisure. Tourism can involve both relaxation and learning, participating in activities such as extreme sports or experimenting with local cuisine, exploring natural landmarks or visiting historic buildings. Hospitality is the practice of receiving and entertaining guests, and the industry covers hotels, restaurants, resorts, and places that offer tourist activities.
Hospitality and tourism often make up a substantial part of a country’s national income, depending on the opportunities and services available to tourists and the popularity of the destination. The tourist industry includes a vast array of goods and services, from transportation services, to amusement parks, shopping centres, cruise ships and more.
English Courses for Tourism
English courses that are designed for those wanting to work in the tourism and hospitality industries cover basic English skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as more specific topics. Topics covered could include types of accommodation, dealing with guests and tourists, handling customer complaints, learning related vocabulary to answer the phone and arrange tours, etc. They could also be very specific courses, such as English and Surfing.
One of the great ways to learn English for tourism is to study overseas and actually combine your studies with tourist activities. So for example, if you study at an English college on the Gold Coast, you could learn English related to activities such as marine sports (fishing, surfing, jet skiing, scuba diving), theme parks or sightseeing. Or if studying at a college in Sydney, you could learn how to interact with people actually working in the tourism and hospitality industries, including public transport officers, waiters, tour guides and so on.