The writer suggests that in the future

Part 4 Reading

Task 1

Read the following newspaper article and then answer questions 25-30.

Indicate the letter A, В, С or D against the number of each question 25-30. Give only one answer to each question.

Are you a tourist or a traveller?

Less than 40 years ago, tourism was encouraged as an unquestionable good. With the arrival of package holidays and charter flights, tourism could at last be enjoyed by the masses. Yet one day, it seems feasible that there will be no more tourists. There will be 'adventurers', 'fieldwork assistants', 'volunteers' and, of course, 'travellers'. But the term 'tourist' will be extinct. There might be those who quietly slip away to foreign lands for nothing other than pure pleasure, but it will be a secretive and frowned upon activity. No one will want to own up to being one of those. In fact, there are already a few countries prohibiting tourists from entering certain areas where the adverse effects of tourism have already struck. Tourists have been charged with bringing nothing with them but their money and wreaking havoc with the local environment.

It won't be easy to wipe out this massive, ever growing tribe. Today there are more than 700 million 'tourist arrivals' each year. The World Tourism Organisation forecasts that by 2020, there will be 1.56 billion tourists travelling at any one time. The challenge to forcibly curtail more than a billion tourists from going where they want is immense. It is so immense as to be futile. You cannot make so many economically empowered people stop doing something they want to do unless you argue that it is of extreme damage to the welfare of the world that only the truly malicious, utterly selfish and totally irresponsible would ever even consider doing it. This is clearly absurd. Whatever benefits or otherwise accrue from tourism, it is not, despite what a tiny minority say, evil. It can cause harm. It can be morally neutral. And it can, occasionally, be a force for great good.

So tourism is being attacked by more subtle methods, by being re-branded in the hope we won't recognise it as the unattractive entity it once was. The word 'tourist' is being removed from anything that was once called a holiday in the pamphlet that was once called a holiday brochure. Adventurers, fieldwork assistants and volunteers don't go on holidays. 'Un-tourists' (as I will call them) go on things called 'cultural experiences','expeditions','projects' and most tellingly ‘missions'. The word 'mission' is, perhaps unintentionally, fitting. While this re-branding is supposed to present a progressive approach to travel, it is firmly rooted in the viewpoint of the Victorian era. Like nineteenth-century Victorian travellers, the modern day un-tourist insists that the main motive behind their adventure is to help others. Whereas the mass tourist and the area they visit are condemned as anti-ethical and at loggerheads, the ethos of the un-tourist and the needs of the area they wander into are presumed to be in tune with each other.

The re-packaging of tourism as meaningful, self-sacrificing travel is liberating. It allows you to go to all sorts of places that would be ethically out of bounds to a regular tourist under the guise of mission. Indeed, the theory behind un-tourism relies upon exclusivity; it is all about preventing other people travelling in order that you might legitimise your own travels. Mass tourists are, by definition, excluded from partaking of this new kind of un-tourism. Pretending you are not doing something that you actually are - i.e. going on holiday - is at the heart of the un-tourist endeavour. Every aspect of the experience has to be disguised. So, gone are the glossy brochures. Instead the expeditions, projects and adventures are advertised in publications more likely to resemble magazines with a concern in ecological or cultural issues. The price is usually well hidden as if there is a reluctance to admit that this is, in essence, a commercial transaction. There is something disturbing in having to pay to do good.

Meaningful contact with and respect for local culture also concerns the un-tourist. In the third world, respect for local culture is based on a presumed innate inability within that culture to understand that there are other ways of living to their own. They are portrayed, in effect, as being perplexed by our newness, and their culture is presented as so vulnerable that a handful of western tourists poses a huge threat. This is despite the fact that many of these cultures are more rooted, ancient and have survived far longer than any culture in the first world. None of this ought to matter as un-tourism makes up less than 4% of the total tourism industry. But un-tourists have been so successfully re-branded that they have come to define what it means to be a good tourist.

All tourism should be responsible towards and respectful of environmental and human resources. Some tourist developments, as well as, inevitably, individual tourists, have not been so and should be challenged. But instead, a divide is being driven between those few privileged, high-paying tourists and the masses. There is no difference between them — they are just being packaged as something different. Our concern should not be with this small number but with the majority of travellers. But why should we bother? We who concern ourselves with this debate are potentially or probably un-tourists.. We aren't interested in saving leisure time abroad for the majority of people: we're interested in making ourselves feel good. That's why we've succumbed to the re-branding of our enjoyment, and refuse to take up a term we believe to be tainted. How many times have you owned up to being a tourist?

The writer suggests that in the future,

A there will be a limited choice of destinations available to tourists.

В tourists will be required to pay more for any holidays they take.

С holidays will not exist in the same form as we know them now.

D people going on holiday to relax will feel obliged to feel ashamed.

26 What does the writer say about stopping tourism?

A The expansion of the tourism industry will continue.

В Countries economically dependent on tourism would suffer from any restrictions.

С The industry will not be able to cope once tourist numbers reach a certain limit.

D Tourists must be persuaded that having a holiday is ethically wrong.