IELTS WRITING TASK 2: POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

More and more people are traveling to other countries

.
Why? Do you think it's a positive or negative development?

There has been a significant tendency for people to travel to some other parts of the world. While a variety of factors may lead to this trend, in my opinion, this development would be beneficial for both travelers and the host countries which receive them.

Personally, three main factors are to blame for the growth of international travel nowadays. Firstly, growing prosperity and a rise in living standards in many countries have made travel abroad affordable for almost every member of society. The higher income and the more spare time workers have, the more frequent chance they would make to visit exotic destinations. Secondly, due to the considerable establishment of new tour operators, competition among them has reduced the cost of traveling. Finally, in some countries, governments have imposed more policies to attract foreign tourists, and therefore, holidaymakers have greater opportunities to travel.

In my view, there are undoubtedly advantages for both travelers and the host countries in terms of international travel. On the one hand, there is ever-greater competition among tour agency, so that holidaymakers can enjoy their experience of foreign country and culture to the full and have the minimum of travel expenses. On the other hand, the influx of foreign tourists brings money to the host countries through the provision of jobs and the growth of hospitalities such as restaurants and hotels. Employees in these sectors may benefit from higher wages and living standards, too. At the same time, host tourism could also receive investment opportunities from wealthy investors, and this means that there is an obvious positive development of local economies and businesses.

In conclusion, I believe that the development of international tourism has brought far more benefits to travelers and host countries.
(285 words)

P/s: I sincerely appreciate for all your supporting comments. Many thanks.

The prompt restatement requires you to deliver a clear outline pattern for your discussion based on the two questions being asked:

- Why are more people traveling to other countries? ( 1 reason)
- Do you think it's a positive or negative development? ( Choose only 1 side to support)

The last 2 sentences of the restatement should have given a direct response:
- Question 1: growing prosperity and a rise in living standards in many countries
- Question 2: This is a positive development

What you see above is an outline of a brainstorming procedure. That is the first step towards properly writing the response to the essay. You need to consider all possible responses to the questions provided and then, decide which side you will support and what idea you will discuss that will best support your response to the question. When you brainstorm, you avoid the common pitfalls of response writing which are :

- under developed explanations ( as seen in your first reasoning paragraph)
- unrelated information discussion which leads to a lack of coherence and cohesiveness in the discussion ( second reasoning paragraph error)

To be specific, your first reasoning paragraph did very well in explaining the financial aspect of travel. Even the example used was solid and helped to deliver a clear and properly developed explanation. Then, you decided to throw in a second reason, which did not blend well with the first given discussion and also, was not well explained nor supported with examples. Hence the under developed discussion

The second reasoning paragraph was supposed to help explain why you see this as a positive development based on the growing prosperity and rise in living standards of the tourist. However, you spoke of the benefits of tourism based on the needs of the country for tourists. That does not relate to the first discussion you presented, which then showed that you did not create a cohesive representation of 2 related discussion points.