Climate

Climate is another determining motive for international tourism. Southern European countries with their guarantee of sunshine, also benefit from this factor.

Personal Motives

Personal motives include:

• leisure and holidays - the main motivation for travel outside work-time and periods of professional activity: the motivation factors are rest, the lure of exotic surroundings, cultural discovery, visiting friends and relatives, sports, etc;

• Business travel trips taken within the framework of professional activities: this category includes commercial travellers, airline crews on short or extended stopovers, government and international organisation officials on assignments and equipment installation engineers staying less than one year and employed by companies outside the country of installation;

• Congresses and other meetings - trips undertaken to attend a congress or other types of meetings (seminars, conferences, etc) for non-profit motives;

• Health - trips for medical reasons either to receive medical care or for health improvement by preventive medicine (fitness training, salt water cures, etc). This category also includes all therapeutic treatments and visits to thermal resorts;

• Study - visits abroad to attend courses or to undergo training in a study centre for one or more academic year(s);

• Religion - pilgrimages and trips to holy shrines.

International Tourism Trends

Economic flows generated by international tourism have become essential factors of economic growth and international economic relations for a great many countries. With currently more than half a billion international tourist arrivals, the tourism sector has experienced rapid growth.

Yet, it is apparent that is not the case in all the world’s regions. Indeed, the primary feature of world tourism trends is the inequitable distribution of international travel flows to the different regions of the world.

Travel flows are concentrated towards a few regions and are mainly between countries within the same region.

Although demand for travel to developing countries is growing, the Third World only attracts one-third of the world’s international visitors, furthermore, the already considerable differences in travel flows between world regions are growing.

Europe is the largest receptor region and attracts 59.3 per cent of the world’s tourists. Three-quarters of the international visits in the region are by European inhabitants.

Europe therefore owes its dominant position to the concentration of travel flows to certain destinations in the region.

Demand for world tourism is undergoing considerable quantitative and qualitative changes which are directly influencing the world tourism market.

(adapted from International Tourism)

Task 1. Write a brief summary of the text.

Task 2. Using the classifications and definitions from the text, discuss the trends in tourism in Russia along the following lines.

1. What forms of tourism are best developed in Russia?

2. Is domestic tourism popular in Russia? If yes, how can you prove it? If no, why not?

3. What are the main purposes of travelling in Russia?

4. What categories of foreign visitors are most frequent in Russia?

5. Are there many commuters in Russia? Why (not)?

6. What do you know about excursionist tourism in Russia?

7. What are the major travel motivations for Russian people?

8. Where do Russian people prefer to spend their holidays? Why?

9. What other personal motives for travelling make Russian people move around?

10. What can you say about rates of development of Russian tourism?

11. What are the latest trends in Russian tourism?

Task 3. Speak about modern trends in Russian tourism.