According to the United Nations, a tourist is someone who travels at least 50 miles or 80 kilometers for recreation. In the United States, people love to take trips. They spend more on vacation than anyone else in the world. Many of them take package tours; however, the first vacation package was attributed to an Englishman, names Thomas Cook. In 1841, he took 500 travelers to a nearby town. The price of the tour included a train ticket and a meal along the way. In 1845, Thomas Cook sold the first vacation package tour to Europe. And 1866, his company was organizing trips to the U.S. Today, tourism is a big business. And the tourist industry is crucial to many countries'economy. It is estimated that 80% of jobs in the world, that’s more than 200 million people depend on tourism. Some local governments, like the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, are almost totally depended on visitors. About 95% of the islands income comes from tourism. For other places in the world, tourism is ever growing. It is estimated that by the year 2015, people worldwide will spend some five thousand billion U.S. dollars for vacation abroad. Regions in Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa will see the greatest growth.
Q15 What is a package tour?
Q16 According to the talk, who first introduced the package tour?
Q17 Which of the following is true about the British Virgin Islands?
Q18 How much will be spent by people worldwide on vacation in abroad by the year 2015?
本文是說明文，介紹了跟“旅游”相關的諸多內容。涉及到旅游的定義，旅游的發(fā)展歷史；旅游產業(yè)現(xiàn)在的情況以及對2015年旅游業(yè)發(fā)展的推測。文章本身沒有特別生僻的詞，但其中涉及到的人名（Thomas Cook）、年份、金額、比例等等是筆記的難點也是考點。