Tourism: Leisure in the fast lane

Read the following paragraphs carefully.

A  Glen Nisbett, a London-based manager, is difficult to reach on weekends. He might be on vacation „to experience a real Winter,“ he says, as he did in Bergen last January, or „to catch up with an old friend“ in Venice. Or he might be off „to see the sun again,“ which he did on a last-minute trip to Palma in April. Or he might be recharging his batteries on a self-drive trip to Devon or Cornwall, to the south of France or to Germany’s Mosel Valley. „There are so many places I want to see, but I’m restricted in terms of how much time I can take off work,“ he explains. „Therefore I pack as much as possible into two or three days at a time.“

B  Like Nisbett, more and more Europeans are finding that the once-traditional four-week summer vacation is no longer a good way of spending their holidays. According to the European Travel Monitor, a monthly magazine, short trips of between one and three days accounted for 27% of all breaks taken in 1999. Six out of 10 trips now last a week or less.

C  Numerous factors are fueling the boom in minibreaks. Demanding jobs mean that longer holidays, which often need to be planned well in advance, may be difficult to arrange. Shorter, more frequent vacations – often extended weekends – fit into busy schedules better. Moreover, money is plentiful; there are quite a lot of well-off people who can afford more than one trip a year. And finally travel agencies can offer good deals. Low-cost airlines like Ireland’s Ryanair or Britain’s EasyJet have opened up a growing list of destinations. And cheap accommodation can be found on the Internet which offers an easy way to shop around for the best bargains.

D  City trips take the biggest slice of the short-break cake. The European capitals Paris, London and Rome remain the favored stops. But a growing popularity of smaller and less important cities such as Carcassonne in France, Bologna in Italy or Seville in Spain can be noticed. Eastern Europe is also catching on: Estonia’s Tallinn, Latvia’s Riga and Poland’s Krakow are all billing themselves as „the new Prague“. And Reykjavik, with its all-night street parties in summer and huge club scene year-round, is benefiting from the boom in young, hip tourists.

E  Travelers are not just taking more city breaks, they expect to be entertained while they are there. Says Robin Zimmermann, a public relations manager at TUI Germany, the country’s largest tour group. „People want more of a city than just sightseeing.“ Like fabulous food or their favorite music. One of TUI’s most popular trips: a gastronomy weekend in Lyons, which culminates in an evening with a delicious meal at the very famous restaurant of Paul Bocuse; or many people visit London in order to see some of the great musical productions there. Moreover, there is another trend that shows the changing expectations of the tourists. „Wellness“ breaks are the latest trend for those who want to have a rest and care for their health at the weekend. Once the preserve of the elderly or infirm, spa breaks are now very popular with the young and stressed.

F  Increasingly, European holidaymakers are going farther afield for quick kicks. Lyn Miller, editor of Wanderlust, a magazine for independent travelers, says that a survey revealed that the city which most readers wanted covered as a weekend trip was Rio de Janeiro. She says it’s „such a fabulous place that you won’t even notice the jet lag.“ Her prediction for the next hot destination? Buenos Aires, a further three hours away. Fritidsresor Group, Scandinavia’s largest tour operator, is market-testing long weekends in Toronto and Beijing. „It’s only a nine-hour flight,“ says communications director Lottie Knutson, of Beijing. „If it’s somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, you’ll do it. It’s a new way of thinking.“

Adapted from an article in Time, October 30, 2000

Reading comprehension: Gapped summary