In today's video, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about tourism and a little bit

of the tourism words you need to plan your next vacation.

Now, we're going to focus mostly on group tours, not so much solo travelling.

I'll make a different video for that, but we want to look at the different types of

tours you can take and how you're going to get there, okay?

So, we're going to start with the types of tourist destinations and tourist vacation

styles you can enjoy.

The most common vacation style, for example, people in Canada, especially in the winter,

they like to go down south to Cuba, Florida, Mexico, all these hot areas.

And they like to stay on a resort.

Now, a resort is usually a gated place or a closed off community where there're hotels

and there's restaurants and there's a beach.

And people don't really have to worry about anything.

They don't have to go anywhere.

Everything they need is right there at the hotel.

All the amenities are available.

Now, amenities are like spa and restaurant and gym and a masseuse if they need a message.

All these things are there.

They don't have to travel too far.

They go, relax, stay a week, go home back to their every day lives.

Now, very similar to a resort vacation is a cruise vacation.

This is on a big ship, but these days, these cruise ships.

They're just - cruse ship, just add the "ship" to it - cruise ships are called floating cities,

because they are so huge and basically everything that you need, everything that you have at

home is available on the ship, including all the amenities plus some.

They have many restaurants, they have casinos, they have movie theaters, they have play areas

for the kids, if you're taking your kids.

They have all kinds of things to keep you busy, because you're basically in the middle

of the ocean.

There's really nowhere to go sightseeing.

You just stay on the boat, relax.

They do make stops at different points along the way.

So, you can go out for the day, do a little bit of shopping, get a little bit of culture,

get back to the boat, back to the sea or ocean, and keep going.

Again, very easy type of vacation and very relaxing for most people.

Now, again, you can go a packaged tour or you can just buy a flight somewhere and do

your own thing.

But a lot of people prefer a packaged tour.

A packaged tour basically packages a few things together.

Flight, hotel, car are the most common components of a package.

Flight and hotel really being the most common, okay?

Now, resorts and cruise ships usually have two options.

They are all inclusive or a la carte.

I'm not sure which way the accent goes, I think it's this way.

So, all inclusive means you make one payment, you pay for the package, and you don't have

to spend any more money the whole vacation, unless you want to, of course.

Right?

All inclusive includes all your meals, all your drinks, all the facilities and amenities

in the hotel or the resort or the cruise ship, right?

Now, if you go outside of the resort and you want to go visit the local areas, then you

pay for the taxi, you pay for any souvenirs you buy.

If you eat in the town, you pay for your meal.

But on the resort, you don't have to pay for anything.

You leave your wallet in your room, go around, do anything you want and enjoy it.

A la carte means you pay - usually you pay for the flight and hotel and then all meals,

you pay for separately.

All drinks, you pay for separately.

All excursions, all activities you pay for separately, right?

As you want them.

Now, if you want to know more about a la carte, you can see my lesson about French vocabulary

in every day use in English.

Now, most people like to go on group tours.

They like to buy packages with groups because A - it's a little bit cheaper than doing it

by yourself and B - they get to meet new people.

A lot of people feel safer, okay, safety in numbers.

If that works for you, great.

If not, that's fine.

Some people don't like group tours because they're forced to follow the schedule of the

tour.

If you like it, that's fine.

If you don't like it, that's fine.

And these are usually guided tours.

So, group tours are usually guided.

There's a tour guide that goes with the group, takes them to all the different sightseeing

spots.

Maybe gives a little bit of a history or a little bit of education about the place and

then they go to the next one.

A lot of people, and this is becoming more and more popular these days, they like to

go on themed tours.

There's a particular theme to it.

Ecotours or Green Tours.

Basically, you're going someplace where they take care of the environment, okay?

So, you're going to like, a beach, but there's no - they didn't bring in extra equipment.

They didn't bring in extra materials to build hotels.

They build it from wood or they build it from the local materials that are available without

disturbing the ecosystem, okay?

So, if you're the type of person who wants to protect the environment, but you also want

to go on vacation, you can do both on these ecotours, okay?

Some people like to go on adventure tours.

Maybe you want to go skydiving.

Maybe you want to go bungee jumping or skiing down a mountain.

Whatever is your idea of an adventure, there are tours that are geared for that.

Okay?

"Geared toward that" is more common.

It means everything about this tour is to basically engage in that adventure activity.

Skiing, skydiving, whatever you like.

Some people go on medical tours.

Now, what does this mean?

Do they go visit hospitals?

No - well, yes and no.

Okay?

Basically, some people need a medical treatment and some of these treatments are very, very

expensive.

So, they go to another country where it's much cheaper and while they're there, they

also have a little vacation.

So, for example, when I lived in Japan, it was much cheaper to go to a dentist in Thailand

than in Japan.

So, what I did, I would fly to Thailand, I would go to the dentist, then I'd spend a

few days on a beach somewhere and relax.

I got my medical tour and my - my medical needs taken care of and my vacation at the

same time.

And culinary tours.

Some people want to try different foods from different parts of the world.

So, they go on tours where they're taken to all the different regions of a place to taste

the different foods.

Or a wine tour is also very common.

For example, in the States, a lot of people go to Napa Valley and then they go to all

the different wineries and try the wine and eat their local dishes and they basically

get a tour of the whole area.

Now, most of these tours, and generally speaking about tourism, you're going to have an itinerary

which is basically a plan.

You're going to arrive here, you're going to do this, you're going to get on the bus,

you're going to go here, you're going to look around, you're going to have lunch.

Next stop, etc., etc.

And itineraries are full of excursions.

Excursions, sorry a difficult word, basically means activities.

It means outings is another expression you might hear.

Outings.

Basically, you're going out to do something.

You're going sightseeing someplace.

Sightseeing tours are, again, very common with group tours, guided tours, all these

types of tours.

So, excursions - activities.

And a lot of these tours are going to involve going to see different attractions.

It could be a sightseeing spot or a famous place or a museum or an art gallery or historical

spot, etc.

These are all attractions because they attract visitors - curious people.

Now, we're also going to talk about flights.

How you're going to all these tourist destinations.

Now, you can buy discount or bargain flights.

These are usually much cheaper.

Sometimes they're just like, leftover seats.

An airline has sold maybe 80% or 90% of the seats, they have 10% left.

They offer them at a very discounted price so they can fill the plane.

They're also called bargain tickets.

You have to be very careful about these, because these are generally nonrefundable.

It means once you buy the ticket, that's it.

If you cancel, too bad.

You don't get your money back unless you bought cancellation insurance.

Now, because these are discount tickets, the insurance usually costs a bit more.

That's how they make their money again.

But if you don't buy the cancellation insurance and you cancel the flight, you don't get your

money back.

That's why they're so cheap, okay?

And another type of flight is last-minute.

Again, same idea.

It's a week before you want to go.

The airlines still have empty seats.

They just want to have a full plane, so they give this seat very, very cheap because it's

the last minute.

They're hoping somebody can go next week and they get rid of those.

Charter flights.

This is when a company basically hires or rents a full plane and then sells the tickets.

So, because they buy all the tickets on the plane, they get a group rate for the flight.

The tickets are cheaper and then they sell them to people.

Again, it's a little bit discounted, but for the company that does it, it's a very good

profit.

Now, when you're buying tickets, keep in mind there are peak season, low season, and off-season.

Low season and off-season essentially mean the same thing.

Peak season means the busiest time of the year for people to go to this particular place.

So, if you're buying tickets at peak season, you're paying anywhere from 50 to 80 to even

100 percent more than you would at off-season.

Now, again, the reason it's called off-season is because maybe the weather conditions aren't

good, so people don't like to go.

But if you don't mind, you can travel very cheaply around the world, if you go on off-seasons.

And again, group rate.

When you buy - many people together buy tickets or anything, excursions, it's always cheaper.

Now, some people like to fly on points.

Most people have a point card.

When you go fly, you can collect points for every ticket you buy.

When you have enough points, you can change or turn those points into flight tickets.

So, a lot of people fly on points.

Now, these days, again in Canada, you can go to the supermarket and use your AirMiles

card.

This is actually a registered trademark, but AirMiles or AeroPlan or all kinds of different

point cards.

Every time you shop, you get points.

When you have enough points, you can use them to get a free flight ticket.

Now, if you're going to fly on points, keep in mind there is something called blackout

dates.

These are particular dates that the airline will not let you use the points to fly with.

Again, this is usually during peak season.

They're not going to give away free tickets because they can make a lot of money on selling

tickets.

So, look out for blackout dates.

Basically, they take the calendar and they black it out.

Not available, okay?

Now, again, all of this is based on people going to a relaxing vacation.

Usually they're staying at like a star hotel or a starred hotel.

One star, two star, three star or a bed and breakfast.

If you want to know more about hotels, I have a lesson about hotels that you can check out.

The link is in the description box.

But again, these are tourists.

This is tourism.

If you want to go travelling, this is a little bit of a different idea.

Solo travelers need to know different words, need to know different ideas.

But again, I'll make a separate video about that.

And don't forget to subscribe to my channel.

You can come back and watch that video when it comes on.

But for now, if you have any questions about this lesson, please go to www.engvid.com and

ask me there in the comment section.

There's also a quiz to make sure you understand all this new vocabulary.