Examen 5 Enero 2021, preguntas PDF

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UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Y ALEMANA

Campus de Guajara, s/n 38071 La Laguna Tenerife, Islas Canarias

http://webpages.ull.es/users/filina * Tel +34 922 317 619 * Fax +34 922 317 611 * e-mail: [email protected]

ENGLISH FOR TOURIST COMMUNICATION IV JANUARY 2021 CALL – JANUARY 26th 2021 NAME ID 1.- Listening comprehension: Airlines to improve their first and business class service The report in general takes a look at a number of airlines that have been improving their business and first class lounges in recent years. In this particular section they focus exclusively on Swiss Airlines’ Business and First Class lounge. As you watch and listen, take notes to answer the questions below.  Right at the beginning of the report Richard Quest refers to a particular advantage Swissair has had with its lounge. What is it? Note down some of its most salient features.  Swiss CCO, Marcus Binkert, refers to a distinctive factor for their lounge. And Richard Quest mentions another feature.  What other First Class perks are mentioned?  When Richard Quest asks whether or not this tremendous investment is worth it, what is Marcus Binkert answer?  Now they focus on the Business side of the lounge. What is the basic problem you always find in Business lounges?  Then they move to the Senator area. What is special about it?  Given that at CNN they have called this program ‘Lounge Wars,’ why are these ‘wars’ so important?

2.- Reading comprehension: Read the text below and the please answer the questions. Green with shame Brace for a violent force of creative destruction—repulsion

In some households Christmas is the season to be jolly cross 1. A young generation of climate Scrooges will be on the warpath this Christmas, ticking everyone off for the air miles travelled, Santa’s carbon footprint, gorging on meat and the sacrilege of lighting a log fire. It is not as if, like Dickens’s Scrooge, they think that “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” After all, boiling and burying would also release carbon dioxide. But as emissions rise, the killjoys are resorting to shame and repulsion as weapons 1

Cross, adjective use: Someone who is cross is rather angry or irritated.

UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Y ALEMANA

Campus de Guajara, s/n 38071 La Laguna Tenerife, Islas Canarias

http://webpages.ull.es/users/filina * Tel +34 922 317 619 * Fax +34 922 317 611 * e-mail: [email protected]

against environmental evils. It is not just parents who are in the line of fire. Whole industries are, too. From flygskam, or flight shame, to spurning fast-fashion to shunning meat, a relatively small number of young consumers exert a growing influence on big corporations—and politicians who regulate them. It is easy to dismiss the zealots2. By and large they are Western, wealthy, well-educated and “woke.” Much larger numbers fret about how far their next pay-cheque will stretch to trouble themselves with issues of environmental sustainability. And it is unclear to what extent shoppers in the developing world, where airlines, garment-makers and food producers see growth for decades to come, share the Western shamers’ concerns. Yet even in consumer hotbeds like China, climate consciousness is on the rise. It enjoys an Instagram-fuelled tailwind from successful campaigns against plastics and fur. Everywhere it is amplified by a small but growing coterie of investors not just worried about climate change, but looking for the next big thing. In fashion and food, a new generation of startups is turning sustainability into a brand, as Tesla has done for cars. Some of this may be greenwash. But it is disrupting huge businesses. Take flight shame. It began as an expression of personal guilt over one’s carbon air trail, which is high per passenger and cumulatively accounts for about 2% of global emissions. But it has transformed into something closer to collective culpability. Some airlines, especially in northern Europe, are taking it seriously. In Sweden, where the movement was born, passenger numbers have been falling for more than a year (though some of that may be down to a slowing economy) 3. KLM, a Dutch carrier, is urging customers to “fly responsibly”—even telling them that it is quicker to take the train to Brussels from Amsterdam than to fly. (In Swedish, flygskam’s corollary is tagskryt, or train-bragging.) Awareness about the environmental impact of air travel is spreading. In December 2019 UBS, a bank, released a study showing that 37% of respondents in a survey of eight big countries have reduced air travel in the past year out of flight shame. Chinese flyers were among the most concerned. Investors are, too. Citi, another lender, says flight shame makes the industry’s current demand forecasts look “uncomfortably high.” It could hit corporate valuations. In fashion and food shame is rearing its head, too. Both produce far more carbon emissions than aviation, use huge amounts of water and pollute soils and rivers. Fast-fashion, led by brands such as Zara and H&M, has vastly increased the 2

If you describe someone as a zealot, you think that their views and actions are very extreme, especially in following a particular political or religious belief. It implies disapproval. 3 Note that this text came out immediately before the current Covid19 crisis, so in fact the reduction in flying all around the world has been outright catastrophic.

UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA

http://webpages.ull.es/users/filina * Tel +34 922 317 619 * Fax +34 922 317 611 * e-mail: [email protected]

DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Y ALEMANA

Campus de Guajara, s/n 38071 La Laguna Tenerife, Islas Canarias

number of collections sold each year. The resulting throwaway culture has drawn the ire of Western activists. Emerging-market shoppers may join the backlash. Even if they do not, clothing firms feel obliged to show that they are doing something to clean up their act. In summer 2019, 32 of the world’s best-known garment-makers, including Gap, Nike, H&M Group and Zara’s owner, Inditex, forged a pact to make fashion less dirty. They are twitchy that alternatives to fast-fashion, such as resale and rental clothing, which promote the peaceful coexistence of altruism and narcissism, might be on the rise. Vegan vitriol against animal products can resemble that of Carnage, a British film from 2017 in which bucolic youngsters 50 years hence look back with disgust on their forebears’ consumption of flesh and milk meant for calves. A voice-over likens Paul McCartney’s promotion of “meat-free Mondays” to “ethnic-cleansingfree Tuesdays.” The film may be a satire, but the trend towards meatlessness is real enough for fast-food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King to be introducing plant-based burgers, made by companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Sweden, for its part, is in the throes of a long-running “milk war” between Oatly, an oat-drink producer, and Arla, a dairy multinational. Oatly has run an ad campaign that says of its product: “It’s like milk but made for humans.” The dairy industry hates it. Sugar and spice and all things nasty Using consumption to make political or ethical statements is not new. Lawrence Glickman of Cornell University, author of Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America, likens today’s shaming culture to that in the run-up to the American revolution, when anti-British merchants in the colonies refused to sell the crown’s goods. Protesters wore homespun clothing and ostracised those who drank English tea—even the stuff washed ashore after the Boston Tea Party. In the late 1700s British abolitionists, especially women, boycotted sugar and other goods produced by slaves in the West Indies. Since then, action has more often focused on specific companies. In the 1990s Nike and Gap were pilloried for their alleged use of “sweatshop” labour. In 2010 Nestlé had to fend off a campaign alleging that it had orangutans’ blood on its hands because oil palms which provided ingredients for KitKats had replaced the apes’ jungle habitat. In December 2019 Peloton, an exercise-bike company, got into hot water over a Christmas ad some deem sexist. It is harder to shame diffuse behaviour than individual firms. Green-tinged scorn may prove hard to sustain. But it is also hard to counter—the shamers love to trash firms’ cuddly marketing guff. As with any consumer trend, few will be as committed as pious early adopters. But they can herald a genuine revolution. Companies ignore them at their peril.

UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Y ALEMANA

Campus de Guajara, s/n 38071 La Laguna Tenerife, Islas Canarias

http://webpages.ull.es/users/filina * Tel +34 922 317 619 * Fax +34 922 317 611 * e-mail: [email protected]

Comprehension questions  As an example of environmental activism mention is made in the text to the Swedish term flygskam, or flight shame, meaning that we should fly much less or even avoid flying altogether. As alternatives, we all should use more our car or public transport for short distance trips, to travel by coach or train for mid-range distances, or by boat for longer ones, regardless of how long it would take for us to travel to, say, Japan, or how expensive it could be. As a matter of fact, for flygskam supporters, it would be much better for all of us if we just forgot about holidays to far-flung destinations once and for all: there’s no place like home, you know!? Do you think this alternative really makes sense or is feasible for the people living in our planet today? Why (not)? Before rushing to answer, think of how this type of measure could affect you, personally, or all of us living in a place like the Canaries. Approx. length, 80 words.  From what the text explains, “[these environmental zealots] by and large are Western, wealthy, well-educated and “woke.” Much larger numbers fret about how far their next pay-cheque will stretch to trouble themselves with issues of environmental sustainability. And it is unclear to what extent shoppers in the developing world, where airlines, garment-makers and food producers see growth for decades to come, share the Western shamers’ concerns.” In this short fragment we can see summarised one fundamental divide when it comes to environmental activism. Explain it. Approx. length, 80 words.  Along the text we can read how some people feel “guilty” about their consumer behaviour, how some of them are described as “zealots,” a word that originally referred to Jewish extremists in Jesus’ time, and how some big corporations have had to mend their ‘evil’ ways as a result of these activists’ actions, a sort of present-day version of David vs Goliath. Would you say then that much or all this consumer activism is some sort of replacement religion (“religion sustitutoria”)? Does it all really make sense or are some environmentalists just playing at virtuesignalling (“postureo ético”)? Approx. length, 80 words.

3.- Essay writing: In some of the texts your dossier there appeared examples of how tourism is apparently damaging the cultural essence of destinations, with tourists going to Mozart’s house or to a gorgeous historic bookstore in Oporto just as if they were going to a shopping centre. According to critics, tourism is rapidly banalising cultural heritage, turning it into just one more consumer good. For others, though, this criticism is simply a badly disguised form of elitism that wants to preserve, for example, Mozart just for a reduced bunch of classical music connoisseurs instead of opening his music and his era up to the general public.

UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA

http://webpages.ull.es/users/filina * Tel +34 922 317 619 * Fax +34 922 317 611 * e-mail: [email protected]

DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Y ALEMANA

Campus de Guajara, s/n 38071 La Laguna Tenerife, Islas Canarias

What is your position of this subject? Does tourism really damage our cultural heritage? Or does it help us to preserve it precisely by turning it into a commodity? Remember, isolationism does not make much sense these days. Justify your answer. Approximate length, 200 words.

4.- Incentive travel: Imagine a corporate client (invent the details) has approached you to organise an incentive package. Bear in mind that incentive travel can be used to entice selected or prospective customers or to thank and reward their loyalty, to improve team work and performance, or to reward outstanding company results: it is up to you the choice you decide to develop. In your answer you must explain what your incentive package would consist of, detailing number of days (NOT AN ITINERARY), number of people, transport, accommodation, activities, and any other aspect you consider relevant and that proves that your proposal does make a difference in wowing your incentive travellers. Remember, incentive travel is not just a business meeting, it also implies some degree of inventiveness and of going the extra mile in comfort and entertainment, so please forget about typical packages (attending meetings and presentations, going to a nice restaurant, and doing some sightseeing). As a matter of fact, typical packages will be considered off-the-topic. Though no precise extension is required, some 400-500 words seem reasonable to explain your proposal. Also, though money shouldn’t be a serious obstacle, your proposal should be accompanied by an approximate budget that is consistent with the things you offer. Nota bene: Please, do not use vague expressions such as ‘guarantee uniqueness’ or ‘ensure exclusivity,’ that means nothing: the idea is precisely that you explain how, in practical terms, you can guarantee uniqueness or ensure exclusivity. Also, please, forget about trips to places like Monaco, Montecarlo, Dubai or any of the other United Arab Emirates: for any truly discerning traveller those would be the last places in the planet they would like to travel, much less as an incentive. For them, that would rather be a punishment....