A) Scan the text and say whether you agree with the conclusion the writers arrive at. Explain your viewpoint

Does tourism ruin everything that it touches?

The effects of tourism since the 1960s have been incredible. To take just a few examples:

The Mediterranean shores have a resident population of 130 million, but this swells to 230 million each summer because of the tourists. This is nothing. The United Nations projects that visitors to the region could number 760 million by the year 2025. In Spain, France, Italy and most of Greece, there is no undeveloped coastline left, and the Mediterranean is the dirtiest sea in the whole world.

American national parks have been operating permit systems for years. But even this is not enough for the most popular sites. By 1981, there was an eight-year waiting list to go rafting down the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River, so now there is a lottery once a year to select the lucky travellers.

Poor Venice with its unique, exquisite beauty. On one hot, historic day in 1987, the crowds were so great that the city had to be closed to all visitors.

In Barbados and Hawaii, each tourist uses ten times as much water and electricity as a local inhabitant. Whilst feeling that this is unfair, the locals acknowledge the importance of tourism for their economy.

The prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in France were being slowly ruined by the breath and bacteria from 200,000 visitors a year. The caves have now been closed to the public and a replica has been built. This is much praised for its likeliness to the original.

Will there be more replicas like Lascaux? There already are. Heritage theme parks (mini-Disneylands!) are cropping up everywhere. Many of the great cities of Europe, such as Prague, Rome, and Warsaw, are finding that their historic centres are fast becoming theme parks – tourist ghettos, filled with clicking cameras and whirring camcorders, abandoned by all local residents except the souvenir sellers.

Until recently, we all believed that travel broadened the mind, but now many believe the exact opposite:

‘Modern travel narrows the mind’.

(After Liz and John Soars, New Headway Upper-Intermediate.)