Geography of Tourism

Mitt favoritämne här i Waterloo är kursen som heter Geography of Tourism. Den behandlar hur turism ser ut i världen, vilka inverkningar den har på kultur, språk, miljö, ekonomi, demografi och mycket mer. Idag har jag mitt andra prov i ämnet, vilket består av 40 frågor med ett rätt alternativ mellan A och D. Inte så lätt som det kanske låter, för även om man gissar sig hela vägen igenom så har du 75% chans att få 0 rätt... ;)

Iaf så har jag länge tänkt att jag skulle skriva ner lite av det som dykt upp i kursen här på bloggen och eftersom jag nu ändå sitter o pluggar så kan jag göra det som en repetition! Nedan följer därför textbitar, "trivia", citat och annat som jag skribblat ner i mina anteckningar.
Mycket nöje!

* Tourism is one of the world's largest employers. There is a new job created within the tourism business every 2.5 seconds.

* 12.8 % of all working Canadians were employed within the tourism business in 2005, meaning about 2,070,320 people.

* "You might love to go to McDonalds in Asia, though you would hardly ever visit them back home." [Pico Iyer, känd tourism filosof]

* According to the World Tourism Organization, a tourist is someone who stays at a place that is not their home for more than one night but less than one year.

* According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a human being's basic needs are
- physiological = water, food, health
- safety = the absence of war, threat, fear, anxiety
- social = affection, sense of belonging, to give and to receive love
- esteem = self-respect, sense of value
- self-actualisation = fulfillment, sense of achievement
People in developing countries have not yet fulfilled these needs and therefore don't spend time or resources on accessory things such as travel.

* In India, travel is growing fast and so are the number of airlines and flights. Tickets with cheap airlines can be bought for a dollar and many Indians believe airplanes are cleaner and better for the environment than trains.

* Only two African airlines are considered safe by the World Tourism Organization: Egyptian Airlines and South Africa Airlines.

* Airbus is making a new airplane model called A380. This monster has the height of a 3 story building, is 75 m long and has a wingspan of 80 m. It can take up to 900 passengers and uses 2.9 liters of plane fuel per passenger per flown 100 km.

* Boeing is aiming for less fuel consumption and therefore building 787's in light weight carbon which uses 20 % less fuel.

*The price tag for a Boeing 777 ranges from US$ 171 million to US$ 253 million.

* The amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class was US$ 40,000.

* LSG Sky Chefs prepare 7 tons of meat and fish for flight meals every day at their JFK International airport facility (New York).

* The International airport strip in Honolulu, Hawaii, is built with coral, on top of a coral reef.

* The first flight attendants, in the 1930's, were required to be unmarried nurses and weigh less than 115 pounds (52 kg).

* "Tourism is like fire: is can cook your food but also burn down your house" [Fox, 1977]

* Sometime in the 1990's a German family was robbed and murdered in Florida. Media in Europe screamed "Tourists are being killed in Florida, don't go there!", and several trips were cancelled. This perception of criminality did however not coincide with reality since crime rates lowered in Florida during the same period.

* Funafuti, the capitol of Tuvalu in the South Pacific, had a population of about 3,000 and was one of the world's least visited nations when the cruise ship Crystal Symphony with 775 passengers and 500 staff members anchored off its shore. The cost for a cruise ticket was about $2,000 which was what an average Funafuti citizen earned in three years.
To make their island more attractive and to meet the expectations of the tourists, the Funafutians painted the coral on the reef where the cruisers were to land.

* In Dominika, a caribbean island, you can proudly be served the local delicacy "Mountain Chicken", which is legs from a special kind of forest frog.

* Nauru, in the South Pacific, is the world's smallest island nation and only one tenth the size of Washington DC.

* Phuket, Thailand, has approximately 2 million tourists every year. The permanent population is 200,000. In a video shown in class a local says that before mass tourism they didn't have to lock their houses and the warden had to bring in prisoners from other places to have something to do.

*"Phuket" in Thai means mountain and the island has a tall mountain in its center. However, the mountain is being chopped up and sold in pieces to construction companies so that the lowland can be expanded to make room for more hotels and tourist facilities.

* On a sign by a Phuket hotel pool it says "Welcome to the Hotel OOL! There is no P in it - please keep it that way!"

* A ceremonial Balinese dance mask takes 5-6 days to make, has more than 40 coats of paint, needs to blessed several times by a priest and costs at least $100 to buy. In souvenir shops tourists can buy fake ones that take 1-2 days to make, have 5 coats of paint and cost $2-5.

* The Nobel Peace Price winner Rigoberta Menchu said in a speach that "our costumes are considered beautiful, but the persons wearing them don't exist".


Mycket att begrunda... Finns mer att veta för den som är intresserad!

Take good care!
And travel by bike, train or means of shared transportation!

/kanadanka