Els usos lingüístics en el turisme a la Garrotxa

Abstract

Given the significant added value that language skills provide in many fields nowadays, it is entirely appropriate to analyse the linguistic supply and demand in the tourism industry in the Garrotxa, the home territory of the author. This study gives a contextualized overall approach about the needs of tourism and describes the strengths and the weaknesses in this area, so as to understand the current situation, both in spoken and in written communication. In order to do so, several aspects such as the sort of tourist attraction that appeals the visitors and the type of service offered in its surroundings must be taken into account. Actually, they play decisive roles in this sense, and the linguistic choice in tourism communication is conditioned by them. The results are taken from a corpus data, both from personal interviews to tourist stakeholders of the Garrotxa and from the observation of the discourse genres that occurs in touristic communicative situations in the territory. As for the conclusions obtained in this qualitative study, France appears to be the largest foreign outbound tourism market in the Garrotxa, and French is highly demanded. Nevertheless, English for specific purposes (ESP) does not fail to lead the ranking. Even though the tourism industry is aware of that and aims to offer a high-quality service as far as languages are concerned, it is undeniable that much more efforts must be done.