Festivals and sport tourism

The world’s major arts and music festival receive millions of visitors. The annual Texas State Fair in the USA attracts as many as 3 million, and many other North American fairs receive 1 million or more. Festivals such as the carnival held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA, are attended by large crowds. Winter sports such as skiing, water sports and adventure sports such as white – water rafting have become very popular. When the Olympic Games are held, the host country can expect a huge boost to its tourist industry. The world’s most – visited amusement park is Disney World, Florida, USA, which attracts 16.64 million visitors a year. The total number of visitors at all Disney attractions around the world is 112.5 million a year. Britain’s leading amusement park is Blackpool pleasure beach, with almost 6 million visitors a year.
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Package tours and exhibitions

On 5 July 1841, British travel pioneer Thomas Cook took 570 members of the temperature society (an organization opposed to drinking alcohol) on the newly opened railway from Leicester to Loughborough. This was the first package tour, and the beginning of what was to become the world’s best known travel company. When the Paris exhibition opened in 1851, Cook took “excursionists” abroad for the first time. By the time Thomas Cook died in 1892, he had made travel possible for the masses. During the 19th and 20th centuries, major exhibitions in Europe and the USA brought millions of people to the big cities of the world. Many had never traveled before. The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 had more than six million visitors. A century later, the 1951 festival of Britain attracted 8.5 million. The Paris Exposition of 1889, for which the Eiffel tower was built, had 28 million visitors, and more than 51 million visited the New York World’s fair of 1964 – 65.
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People Migrated

People have been traveling from place to place since ancient times. Nomadic people moved about to graze their livestock. Later people traveled to trade, or to seek their fortunes in gold rushes, and millions emigrated to other countries to escape persecution or to seek better lives. Apart from a few historical examples, tourism – traveling for pleasure – is a relatively modern idea. Today people spend nearly $500 billion a year on tourism. The Romans placed great value on bathing. They settled in many places with natural springs and developed cities as spas. In the 18th century, it became fashionable to visit these spas to “take the waters” – drinking and bathing as cures for various illnesses. Bath in England is a well – known Roman spa.
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Famous ships

Some ships, such as Titanic, are famous because they sank, but here are some famous ships that are celebrated for a variety of other reasons. Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria are the three ships on Christopher Columbus’s voyage of 1492 to America. The Mayflower ship took the settlers known as the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouths to America in 1620. Endeavour was the Captain James Cook’s ship on his exploration of Australia and New Zealand in 1768 – 71. Marie Celeste the US ship found abandoned in the Atlantic in 1872. The fate of its crew remains a mystery. Kon Tiki – a balsawood raft on which Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl sailed from South America across the Pacific to Polynesia in 1947. He made the voyage to prove his theory that Polynesian people came from South America.
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Top speeds

The US navy’s Nimitz class nuclear – powered aircraft carriers can travel at more than 56 km/h. During the 19th century clippers could average 36.63 km/h. The modern sailing yacht record is held by Simon Mckeon and Tim Daddo of Australia. On 26 October 1993 they sailed their yacht yellow pages Endeavour at 86.21 km/h. The Spanish – built Australian catamaran Luciano Federico L can carry 52 cars and 450 passengers at a top speed of 107 km/h. On 25 January 1980 a US navy Bell SES – 1008 experimental vehicle achieved a speed of 170 km/h. These super – fast racing motor boats are capable of great speeds: Dave Villwock set a record average speed of 343.5 km/h in Miss Budweiser at Oroville, California, USA, on 13 March 2004.
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Obelisks and columns

Obelisks are stone columns made in ancient Egypt almost 4,000 years ago. Some were taken as trophies by invading armies and are now in cities such as Istanbul, Rome, London, Paris and New York. More recently people have built memorials based on the design of obelisks. A column commemorating the battle of San Jacinto near Houston, Texas, USA, is the world’s tallest monument at 174 m. It was completed in 1939. The Washington Monument, Washington DC, USA, was completed in 1884. It is 169 m tall, made of 36,491 stone blocks on an iron frame and weighs 82,421 tonnes. It was the world’s tallest structure for five years until it was overtaken by the Eiffel Tower in 1889. The Wellington Monument in Dublin, Ireland is a stone obelisk made to celebrate the victories of the Duke of Wellington. It was completed in 1861 and is Europe’s tallest obelisk at 63 m.
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Mysterious creatures

Fairies also feature in many tales. They are usually sweet, kindly creatures. In the middle ages, however, people believed that fairies stole children and replaced them fairy beings known as changelings. Vampires are the undead who drink the blood of the living to survive. The werewolf is bloodthirsty and ruthless. It devours its prey and shows none of the remorse that it might have felt in human form. They usually appear as men by day, but may return into wolves on the night of a full moon. Trolls are grotesque, malicious, rather dim – witted creatures in Scandinavian folklore. They are said to steal sleeping children, sometimes replacing them with one of their own. Trolls have poor eyesight, and are active only at night because sunlight turns them to stone.
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