Tourism and development, Majorca, Spain 

The main types of transport that link one place to another include road, rail, sea and air. Communications include TV and radio, telephone and fax, e-mail and other computer links, and printed matter.  Transport refers to the movement of people and goods between places. Communications refers to the exchange of ideas and information, as well as the movement of people and goods between places. Tourism can lead to the development of  both transport and communication in a region.

Firstly, large-scale tourism creates a need for transport and commnucation links to and within tourist areas. Secondly, profits from tourism provide  the money to pay for the development of such links. Finally, even the prospect of job-creation and profits from tourism may encourage governments to invest in transport and communication links in potential tourist areas.

Before mass tourism, Majorca was a quiet and remote island. Now Palma airport is the busiest in Spain. Fleets of car ferries carry visitors to and from Portugal, Italy, France and other coutries. Narrow country roads have been upgraded and replaced, in places, with motorways. Computer and telephone lines carry tens of millions of messages to and from the island each year.

 For and against tourism

Read the arguments about tourism carefully. You will need to sort them into correct columns in the exercise For and against tourism.

 1. Roads, electricity, water and sevage services have all benn greatly improved.

2. The tourist boom has provided lots of work in the building trade.

3. Tourism is largely a seasonal business, with a very busy peak during the summer period. At other times of the year, many seasonal workers are without work.

4. These services are overused during the peak season. Roads are overcrowded. Swimming pools use so much water that water is in short supply to local farms.The Mediterranean Sea is polluted annually with the sewage of up to 90 million tourits.

5. Land values have risen so rapidly here, that only rich property developers and other wealthy outsiders can afford to buy land. Because of this, local people are gradually losing ownership of their own locality. Hogh land values also mean that fewer public parks or other commnunity amenties are being developed for local people.

6. I ued to be a small farmer and was quite poor. I made a lot of money selling my land at a very high price to the property developers.

7. This used to be a lovely peaceful place. Now it is noisy, brash and full of litter, and has lost its own distinctive character.

8. The cost of living  has risen too, especially the cost of food, housing and entertainment. This is particulary hard for those people who do not make their money from tourism.

9. The high-rise hotels that have been built are extremely ugly. Many of them are poorly finished, and building work seems to be going on all time. The long unplanned lines of these hotels dominate the skyline and spoil our beautiful scenery.

10. This place used to be far too dull! Now there is plenty of entertainment available.

11. This was once an area of high unemployment. Most local people have now found jobs in hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.

12. Tourism has brought lots of foreign money to the area. Peoples' standard of living have risen as a result.

There are some exercises for you. Go through them! You can find them in Study Materials (Studijní materiály -> Odpovědníky) or you can use the follow link.