Tour operators (旅行社) are looking forward to a profitable (營利豐富的) summer with demand for educational and travel trips up by 60 to 70 percent despite a 20 percent rise in fares.
They say the improved economy has led to a clamor (note 2) by parents for study tours, with Jetour reporting it is fully booked (滿額) for a 16-day trip to Switzerland that costs HK$30,000 per head. Hong Thai Travel Services said it has been working with (note 3) secondary schools to provide tailor-made (鍍身訂做) study tours that have seen the number of participants rising by 60 to 70 percent.
"The destinations (目的地) and programs are specially designed (鍍身訂做) for different schools," corporate communications manager Cherie Fong Wai-yee said.
"For instance, if the students are interested in music, they may prefer to visit Vienna."
Fong said the agency has arranged 30 tours this summer with about 30 to 40 students in each group. But some agencies said they are limiting numbers to maintain tour quality (note 4). "We are only conducting seven to eight tours this summer, the same as last year, with 20 students in each," Jetour overseas education services executive Wong Wai-yan said.
The tours mainly cater to (迎合) students aged 12 to 15 with each having a particular theme (主題). The cheapest is a HK$12,000, eight-day tour to Sabah that will concentrate on environment conservation (保育) and outdoor activities. "Parents want their children to be exposed to (開放自己) other cultures so as to raise their competitiveness (增強競爭力)," Maxway Education director Janice Yao Mung-lok said.
EGL Tours is arranging three packages with 100 students in each group to the Whampoa Youth Military Training School in Shenzhen. The tour costs about HK$1,000.
From good to better English:
(note 1) hot tickets=搶手貨。Ivy is a hot ticket=Ivy極度受歡迎。hot air = 吹牛。hot line= 熱線。hot potato= 棘手的問題。hot seat=尷尬處境。 hot spot= 麻煩地點。hot spring= 溫泉。hot under the collar=心煩意亂。in hot water= 陷入困境。
(note 2) clamor for=熱烘烘地追求。Victor Fung’s speech was clamored down by protesting students=學生吵得使Victor的演講說不下去〔把演講者轟下臺〕。
(note 3) work with=合作。Work=工作。All work and no play makes Jack (or Victor) a dull boy=整天工作不玩耍，Victor變成大呆瓜。Selected Works of Dean Fung 《Dean Fung選集》。Out of work=失業。Work hand in glove with= 與人狼狽為奸。
(note 4) maintain quality=保持質素。Maintain=維持、維修、強調。maintain discipline=維持紀律。 maintain peace and order=維持治安。 Mo Mo maintains her ground against slave trade=Mo Mo 對反對奴棣買賣堅持自己立場。
Victor’s View: I strongly encourage parents to send their children to summer camps learning English or other languages. Children will learn independent living abroad and start to appreciate how lucky they are with parents taking care of them, in addition to strengthening their language abilities.
(Victor Fung Keung, director of HK Baptist University’s M.A. in international journalism program, has published 3 books on English-enhancement and plans to write 7 more by the end of 2012. Write to him: deanfungenglish@gmail.com)
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