Task prompt
Read the two texts below. Write an essay that summarises and evaluates their key points. Express the ideas in your own words as far as possible and include your own views on the issue. Write 240–280 words.
Word limit: 280 words
"Modern Tourism and Local Life" is a C2 Proficiency Writing practice task (essay). Cambridge assesses content, communicative achievement, organisation and language on a scale from 0 to 5 per criterion. Plan before you write: identify the target reader, the required register and the number of points you must address. At C2, examiners expect sophisticated vocabulary used accurately, varied sentence structures and clear paragraphing.
Plan the essay before writing, address every prompt point, keep the expected register, respect the word limit, and use feedback to improve content, organisation, grammar range, and vocabulary precision.
Read the two texts below. Write an essay that summarises and evaluates their key points. Express the ideas in your own words as far as possible and include your own views on the issue. Write 240–280 words.
Word limit: 280 words
Tourism can be a valuable source of income for places with limited industries. Visitors support small businesses, create employment and provide funds for maintaining historic buildings, landscapes and traditions that might otherwise receive little investment. It can also encourage residents to value aspects of their own culture that are overlooked in everyday life. Seen in this light, travel is not simply a leisure activity for outsiders but a means of distributing opportunity, particularly when local people retain control over how their area is presented. When planning is transparent, visitors can become partners in conservation rather than consumers of a place.
The economic gains from tourism are not always shared fairly. In popular destinations, short-term rentals can raise housing costs, seasonal work may be insecure and public spaces may be redesigned for visitors rather than residents. Environmental pressure is also intensified when fragile places receive large numbers of people in a short period. Restricting tourism altogether would be unrealistic, but its scale and timing need managing if communities are not to become scenery for an industry from which they benefit only marginally. Authorities should measure success not by visitor numbers alone, but by whether residents can continue to live and work there well.