UNIT 11  Travel
Warm up-Thinking about the Topic
Look at these photos. Talk about them with your partner.
1 What sort of places are these?
2 Try to identify them and name the countries where they can be found.
3 Which is the most recent one?
4 Now, work together with a partner to make some sentences about the images.
Beginning to Read

Scanning for Specific Information
The Weird and the Wonderful - That's Tourism!
A
The Beijing Olympics started on 08.08.08, but on 07.07.07 there was an event of almost equal importance, On that earlier date, the new Seven Wonders of the World were announced. These replaced most of the original ancient ones, although Egypt's Pyramids were given an honorary place. The final revised list included the ancient stone city of Petra in Jordan and the ruined city of Machu Picchu in Peru. Italy's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal and Mexico's Chichen Itza were three magnificent buildings that were included, and Brazil's
towering statue of Christ the Redeemer, which was only built in 1931, joined the older members of the list. And, needless to say, the updated list would have been incomplete without the inc1usion of China's Great Wall, which was built to defend the country from invaders.
B
Those sites, are very popular, and people travel from all over the world to view them, but other than looking at them, there's very little else to do. Tourist companies in cities, towns or villages want to get people to come and have a good time and spend their money, so they have to dream up ways of attracting the tourists. Then they have to keep them there by providing them with something different, exciting or even downright dangerous to do; the trick, though, is to think of something unique.
C
That could be something like New Zealand's original bungy jumping, for example, where a
stretchy rope is tied around your ankles and you jump from a great height, stopping (hopefully) just before the ground. Or it could be dragon boat races, for instance, which take place in China each year on the fifth day of the fifth month according to the Chinese lunar calendar. If you say bungy, people immediately think of New Zealand, and if you say dragon boat, people at once think of China, but you can do bungy jumps in other parts of the world, and you can see dragon boat racing in Singapore or other places overseas.
D
Big cities usually have many attractions to keep tourists happy, but smaller towns or villages find it difficult and they sometimes struggle. Some fail, but others manage to put themselves on the map and attract large numbers of visitors. They do this by organizing events that are not available anywhere else in the whole wide world. Take Cooper's Hill in England for instance: they roll a large cheese down a steep hill and hundreds of people chase after it. Many fall and are hurt, but the last person standing at the bottom of the hill can keep the cheese.
E
A similar downhill event takes place in Suwa, Japan, where men only sit on a huge log, one behind the other, and try to ride it down a steep hill without falling off and being injured or worse. Why do they do it? Other than the sense of pride and relief at making it to the bottom of the hill in one piece, there is no prize, no money, nothing. Or take the town of Sonkajarvi in Finland; it organises a yearly wife-carrying competition in which the man must carry the woman and run along the ground and through water. The first couple to cross the winning line get the prize ... the wife's weight in beersort something out!
F
Then there's Bunol, Spain. On the last Wednesday in August, they have a food fight. It's called La Tomatina, and up to 40,000 people can gather in the streets and throw ripe tomatoes at each other. As you can imagine, it's very, very messy, but great fun. Another fun festival which is just as messy, if not messier, occurs every summer in Boryeong, South Korea. During the annual Mud Festival, people, especially foreigners, let their hair down an
d play and wrestle in the mud. Most of these events, apart from the Finnish one, which has been imitated elsewhere, are truly unique because they can't be found anywhere else in the world.
G
From a tourism provider's point of view, tourism is all about how to attract people to your area, and then keep them there long enough to spend money. There needs to be a 'point of difference', something that makes your site, festival or attraction really stand out in a crowded market. Some places are lucky enough to have one of the great wonders of the world. Others have a special annual festival or event which is too good to be missed. The rest have to rely on spectacular scenery, seasonal conditions, such as winter snow, or unique activities and adventure sports to keep the flow of tourists rolling in.
5 Quickly SCAN the first paragraph of the reading passage and fill in the details of the man-made structures in the table below.
Country
Wonder
Type of Structure
1
Mexico
2
Petra
3
statue
4
city
5
Colosseum
6
India
7
fortification(for defence)
Skimming to Summarise the Main Idea

6 Look at the FIRST sentence of each paragraph, and then work with a partner to complete a brief summary of this reading passage. Speak, do not write.
This passage is about ...                 It gives examples of. ..

Understanding Idiomatic Language

7 Complete the following prepositional phrases, using the prepositions given below.
at
down
for
for
in
on
to
up

a. dream ______                  e. needless_________ say
b. _______example                f. _________once
c. _______instance                g. _________one piece

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