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more, you also have the chance of an (3) _______ _______ to the First Class if there are any free seats. The planes are very comfortable – the seats have lots of (4) ______

______ so you don’t feel cramped, and they offer a good range of meals on the menu.

On the top of that there is an air miles (5) _______ ________, so that if you fly with them regularly, you can quickly earn points for a free flight.

In Georgia, they have an arrangement with the Eastern Traveller’s Inn, which has been specially built to meet the needs of the business traveller. It’s in a good area of town, and the rooms are very nice. They all have (6) ______ _______ with snacks as well as drinks, and they come with a (7) _______ _______ so that you can get your e-mail from a portable PC, and they also have a (8) _______ _______ so that you can send and receive other documents. If you want to give a small presentation, you can hire one of the (9) _______ _______ which can hold up to twenty people, but if you’re planning something big, like a product launch for example, you can hire the (10)

_______ _______, which can seat over 1,000. It’s very good value, but for regular guests they also offer a (11) ________ _______ of about thirty per cent.”

Grammar practice

Conditionals

1. Complete the sentences using either the first conditional or the second conditional.

1.If the economy __________ (not/be) in such a bad state, it __________ (be) much easier to sell holidays.

2.If I __________ (have) more money I __________ (spend) the summer in the South of France, but unfortunately I have stay here.

3.Nobody ___________ (mind) if the plane _________ (be) a few minutes late.

4.I’m expecting the tickets any time now – I ________ (phone) you if they

__________ (come) tomorrow.

5.If I __________ (be) you, I __________ (complain) to the tour operator.

6.It’s a shame we haven’t got anything to spend on promotion. If we ________ (have ) a little spare cash, we ___________ (be able) to advertise and get a lot of customers.

7.It’s a pity I don’t speak Turkish. If I __________ (do), I ___________ (apply) for that job in Istanbul.

8.If you __________ (have) any problems, our local representative ________

(do) her best to help you and can be contacted at any time.

2. Read the following questions, and write a suitable reply. Choose the first conditional to talk about the suggestion you support, and the second conditional to talk about suggestion you do not support. The first one has been done for you.

1.We’re opening a new chain of hotels for business travelers all over Europe. Do you think we should promote them by giving out leaflets in the street or by setting up an Internet web site?

I Think a web site would be better – if we set one up we will be able to reach customers all over the world, but if we handed out leaflets we wouldn’t get the right sort of customers.

2.We have a lot of late availability flights to sell – do you think we should put an advertisement in the paper or get some posters put up in the underground?

3.We’re trying to get some publicity for our 18-30 adventure holidays. Do you think we should think about sponsoring a sports event or take out advertisement in a theater programme?

4.We’re opening a new branch in West Street – do you think we should organize a TV campaign or get some leaflets printed to hand out in the street?

3. Rephrase the following sentences using the third conditional. The first one has been done for you.

1. The developers built so many hotels that they ruined the resort.

If the developers hadn’t built so many hotels, they wouldn’t have ruined the resort.

2.The weather was so bad that we didn’t enjoy our holiday.

3.Our brochures arrived late. We lost a lot of customers.

4.He didn’t have any travel insurance. He had to pay the hospital bill himself.

5.You didn’t reconfirm your ticket. We didn’t book you a seat on the flight.

6.You didn’t discuss the problem with the representative. She didn’t sort it out.

7.Our flight to Cairo wasn’t on time. We missed our connecting flight to Nairobi.

Reading	Отформатировано: Шрифт: 13 пт
Read the article from the “Financial Times” and be ready to discuss it.

TRAVEL AGENTS TRY NOT TO MISS INTERNET BOAT

Online bookings pose threat to traditional High Street outlets

Agent for change: Thomas Cook, the first package holiday organizer, and some early state-of-the-art promotions

In 1841, Thomas Cook, pioneer of the package holiday, organized an outing by train from Leicester to Loughborough for supporters of temperance in Victorian England. He advertised

the trip, dispatched invitations and sold the tickets.

Today Thomas Cook, the UK-based, German-owned travel agency that bears his name, faces a technological revolution that threatens to sweep it and many other agents away. Wider use of the Internet through interactive television is expected to lead rapid growth of online bookings. This, at

least theoretically, could eliminate the role of the travel agent altogether. “Users can bypass the travel agent and book direct from suppliers”, says Barrie Barnes of Philips Electronics, manufacturing set-top boxes, allowing access to the Internet via television.

Unlike banking and insurance services, direct sales of holidays have been slow to take off. But, although few family holidays are booked over the phone or through the Internet, agents acknowledge this is likely to change swiftly once interactive television is fully developed.Customers will be able to see film footage of destinations, ask questions and make booking using remote controls.

Data monitor, the management consultancy, forecasts that the value of travel booked online in the UK will increase to more than £1bn within five years. New technology, once established, could quickly drive a fifth of travel agents out of business, according to the Geneva-based International Labour Organization.

Like all middlemen, travel agents are vulnerable to being squeezed out once direct contact is established between supplier – such as airlines and hotels – and the customer.

Airlines in particular are looking to cut distribution costs. In the US, they have moved to reduce the commission they pay to travel agents – a trend that is spreading to Europe. But agents say they

will not become helpless victims of the transformation. The Internet will change the way they do business, they admit, but it will not make them redundant.

They cannot, however, rely on holidaymakers continuing to go to their shops to book holidays. Thomas Cook says that customers are demanding more convenient ways of booking. Like other agents, it is hedging its best by selling holidays in its shops by telephone. It also plans to sell holidays

and flights on the Internet next month – the first UK travel agent to do so. Providing a variety of distribution channels is expensive in the short term but agents say they cannot afford to do otherwise.

However, they believe that the technological revolution will be in telephone sales rather than Internet sales, and that online technology will rarely be used for booking anything more complicated than an airline or train ticket. “The vast majority of customers [only] want to search

[on the Internet],” says Mark McCafferty, managing director of Thomas Cook travel. “And as soon as you are searching, there is potential for the travel agent to provide added-value services.”

Airtours, the UK’s second largest package holiday group, agrees. The Internet will be used by holidaymakers as an electronic brochure and is likely to replace holiday brochures altogether. But

when it comes to booking a holiday, customers will still want to talk directly to an agent, it argues. The Internet will spur an explosion of telephone sales says Going Places, the travel agency arm of Airtours. It has recently doubled its telesales division in preparation for the change.

Thomson, the UK’s largest package holiday company, has aggressive expansion plans for

Portland, its direct sales arm, which is the largest direct sales holiday operation with 2 per cent of the market. Thomas Cook says its direct sales have come out of nowhere to account for 10 per cent of its sales in three years.

Ian Reynolds, chief executive of the Association of British Travel Agents, believes new technology could put a premium on specialized advice and tailor-made holidays, enabling agents to charge for these services.

Charging for advice would not necessarily push up the overall cost to the holidaymaker as long as airlines used the savings made from reducing distribution costs to cut airfares.

“The way holidays are sold will change more in the next five years than in the past 15,” says Richard Carrick, marketing director of Airtours. “The industry is in a state of enormous flux.”.