Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries and contributes a great deal to economies around the world. However, the damage tourism can cause to local cultures and the environment is often ignored. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Recently, there is an ongoing debate about the significant impacts on the economy by thriving tourism industry create further severe problems in local cultures and environment. This essay, as my notion leads to, tries to elaborate this issue as I believe that problems created are inevitable.
Firstly, the tourists, whether they are foreigners or local ones, tend to disobey the cultural background of the tourism places. Even though they are well known about the surroundings habit, they consider themselves as guests who are supposed to be served by the local society paying no attentions to the native motives.
Secondly, they care less about the environment such as evergreens, rivers, beaches, etc. because they are aware of the government’s existence who has an obligation to maintain a quality environment. To be exact, they just throw the garbage away into inappropriate places. The local people get influenced by the way tourists dress and talk and they also adopt other foreign cultures that are threatening to the local culture. It is often observed that people in tourist area engage their children in work instead of sending them to school and that has a huge impact on the overall growth of the economy and future of a country, especially a third world country.
Lastly, they together with stakeholders who are taking an interest, in this case, argue that this industry can lift the nation from economy problem through opening job opportunities or increasing the income of local citizens as well as the government revenue at the same time, but it seems to be irrelevant. The experts revealed that tourism may cause more expenditure in preserving the unique local cultures and also more expenses in taking care of the environment surrounding tourism places, and it costs more than how much a nation can afford from the industry.
Having considered all views above, it is fact that tourism sector has positive effects on the economy but the negative impacts are much higher to overcome by money gotten from this particular sector. Hopefully, governments and councils can regulate the industry by taking more concern in all aspects (economy, culture, and environment) to result in the maximum outcome.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Remove the unnecessary article Original: the tourists Suggested revision: tourists Why it matters: The plural noun refers to tourists in general, so it does not need 'the'.
- 2. Name the group precisely Original: local ones Suggested revision: domestic tourists Why it matters: 'Domestic tourists' is the standard term for people travelling within their own country.
- 3. Correct the cultural collocation Original: disobey the cultural background of the tourism places Suggested revision: disrespect the cultural norms of tourist destinations Why it matters: People can disrespect cultural norms, whereas they do not 'disobey a cultural background'.
- 4. Fix the adjective structure Original: are well known about Suggested revision: are familiar with Why it matters: People are 'familiar with' customs; 'well known' describes something recognized by others.
- 5. Fix the noun phrase Original: surroundings habit Suggested revision: local customs Why it matters: The original singular noun phrase is ungrammatical and does not clearly express local practices.
- 6. Remove the extra preposition Original: consider themselves as Suggested revision: consider themselves Why it matters: The verb 'consider' takes an object complement directly without 'as' here.
- 7. Use the natural community term Original: society Suggested revision: community Why it matters: 'Local community' is the usual expression for the residents who host visitors.
- 8. Use the uncountable noun Original: attentions Suggested revision: attention Why it matters: 'Attention' is uncountable in the expression 'pay attention'.
- 9. Clarify the intended values Original: native motives Suggested revision: local values Why it matters: 'Local values' fits the cultural context, while 'native motives' suggests reasons for acting.
- 10. Fix the relative clause Original: government’s existence who has an obligation Suggested revision: government, which has an obligation Why it matters: The clause should refer to the institution with 'which' rather than to its existence with 'who'.
- 11. Use the standard collocation Original: maintain a quality environment Suggested revision: maintain environmental quality Why it matters: 'Maintain environmental quality' is the natural expression for preserving environmental conditions.
- 12. Correct the disposal phrase Original: throw the garbage away into Suggested revision: throw rubbish in Why it matters: The original combination of 'away' and 'into' is redundant and unidiomatic.
Suggested Rewrites
- the tourists tourists
- local ones domestic tourists
- disobey the cultural background of the tourism places disrespect the cultural norms of tourist destinations
- are well known about are familiar with
- surroundings habit local customs
- consider themselves as consider themselves
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response takes a recognizable position and covers both cultural and environmental damage in a clear paragraph structure. Its main limitation is that frequent grammatical and word-choice problems obscure parts of the reasoning, while several claims are only loosely explained. The highest-priority improvement is to build each body paragraph around one precise claim, explain the causal link, and support it with a clear relevant example in simpler, controlled sentences.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response addresses the question with a consistent view that tourism's harms outweigh its benefits, but several supporting ideas are insufficiently developed or only partly relevant.
Choose the strongest cultural and environmental harms and explain each with a specific example showing how tourism directly causes the damage.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay has a recognizable progression and clear paragraph divisions, although mechanical sequencing and unclear pronoun references weaken local connections.
Replace firstly, secondly, and lastly with explicit topic sentences, and ensure every pronoun has an unmistakable referent.
Lexical Resource
There is enough vocabulary to discuss tourism, culture, and the environment, but frequent inaccurate collocations and word choices reduce clarity.
Use simpler established combinations such as respect local customs, create jobs, and protect the environment, then check each phrase for natural usage.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response attempts varied complex structures, but frequent errors with articles, agreement, plurals, and clause construction sometimes make meaning difficult to follow.
Write shorter sentence units and proofread each one for a complete clause, correct subject-verb agreement, and necessary articles before combining ideas.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries and contributes a great deal to economies around the world. However, the damage tourism can cause to local cultures and the environment is often ignored. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.