Vocabulary
Tourism appears in writing, speaking and reading. The words worth learning, and how to use them without sounding rehearsed.
Tourism is one of the most reliable IELTS topics. It shows up as a Task 2 essay about the effects of tourism, as speaking questions about travel, and as reading passages about heritage sites and their management.
The vocabulary below is grouped the way the topic is actually argued, because a list of travel words is far less useful than a set of words you can build a paragraph with.
The words
Four groups, each one enough for a body paragraph.
Domestic and international tourism, the hospitality sector, tour operators, package holidays, peak and off peak season, seasonal employment, foreign exchange earnings.
Revenue generation, job creation, infrastructure investment, cultural exchange, preservation funding, regional development, a diversified economy.
Overtourism, environmental degradation, congestion, inflated property prices, seasonal work with low pay, cultural commodification, strain on local services.
Sustainable tourism, ecotourism, visitor caps, tourist taxes, conservation, heritage protection, off season promotion, community led tourism.
Method
Five ways to make it count in the exam.
Sustainable tourism, cultural exchange, environmental degradation. Examiners reward words used in their natural partnerships, not words dropped in individually.
Tourism essays are almost always advantages and disadvantages, or a problem and solution. Vocabulary for only one side leaves half the essay thin.
A place you know that has been changed by tourism, good or bad. One concrete example is worth three general sentences.
Speaking about your last holiday does not need the word commodification. Use the register the question invites.
Tourism is uncountable, a tourist is countable, and infrastructure takes no plural. These are common band 6 slips on this exact topic.
Yes. It appears regularly in Task 2 essays, speaking Part 3 and Academic reading passages.
Only if it fits the question and you can say it comfortably. In Part 1 it will sound rehearsed. In Part 3 it can work well.
No. Tourism is uncountable. Tourist and destination are countable, and infrastructure is uncountable.
Enough to write both sides of an argument, which is usually twenty to thirty, learned in collocations rather than as single words.
Only if it is used accurately and naturally. Vocabulary forced into an answer is visible to examiners and does not score.
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