Tourism
69 conversation questions and prompts
Choose a question. Share your experience or opinion, and explain it when you can.
Use the level groups as a guide when choosing prompts for your students.
A1
Beginner (A1)
8 questions
- Which would you like to visit: a castle, a garden, or an aquarium?
- Do you like looking at old or modern buildings? Why?
- Do you like big souvenir shops?
- Would you like to visit a castle at night?
- Do you stop to watch street shows in tourist areas?
- Would you like to sell tickets at a tourist attraction?
- Name a famous building you want to see.
- How long do you like to stay in a museum?
A2
Elementary (A2)
19 questions
- What is the biggest tourist destination in your country?
- At a museum, do you look at everything or only some sections?
- Do you read the plaques when you travel?
- Did you visit any tourist attractions with your school? What do you remember?
- Would you visit a museum about a subject you know nothing about?
- When you buy a souvenir, is it important where it was made?
- If you visit an old or historic house, which room interests you most?
- Would you climb many stairs to see the view from a famous tower?
- Have you ever visited a tourist attraction because the tickets were free?
- Is a beach better with shops and restaurants nearby or without them?
- What would you put on a postcard of the place where you grew up?
- What do tourists buy that you never buy?
- Have you ever watched someone making things for tourists?
- Which tourist attraction was bigger or smaller than you expected?
- How long would you wait to enter a place you really wanted to see?
- Tell me about a tourist attraction you visited in bad weather.
- What place from a movie would you like to visit?
- Would you rather see the view from a mountain or from a tall building?
- Have you ever seen something surprising in a museum? What was it?
B1
Intermediate (B1)
24 questions
- How important is tourism in your country?
- What are the benefits of international tourism? Are there any drawbacks?
- Do you prefer package tours or do you prefer to plan your own vacations? Why?
- Is it better to go to popular tourist destinations or lesser-known tourist destinations? Why?
- What's the best way to travel when you visit a country? Train, car, bicycle, bus, some other way? Why?
- If you could create a tourism slogan for your country, what would it be?
- How do you feel about tourists who visit your country?
- Have you visited a place that looked very different from its photos? What was different?
- On a tour, how much do you want to hear about the guide's own life?
- Would you enjoy dressing up in historical clothes at an attraction?
- Tell me about something a guide said that you still remember.
- Would you rather visit a ruined castle or one that has been rebuilt?
- What kind of walking tour could keep you interested for two hours?
- Have you ever found the shops around an attraction more interesting than the attraction itself?
- Would you choose a job with long hours in tourist season if you had several months off afterward?
- Tell me about an attraction you nearly skipped but were glad you visited.
- Has a famous sight ever disappointed you? What were you expecting?
- Do you read about a historic place before visiting, or discover its story when you arrive?
- Have you ever enjoyed a tourist attraction that someone else thought was boring?
- What has made you leave an attraction earlier than you planned?
- What would you want to see on a tour of a working movie studio?
- If you could visit one famous place after it closed for the day, which would you choose?
- Have you ever followed a crowd of tourists and found something worth seeing?
- Would you rather see an original work of art from far away or a good copy up close?
B2
Upper Intermediate (B2)
12 questions
- Should a government try to improve domestic tourism or try to attract international tourists instead? Why?
- What's the best way for a country to bring in more tourists?
- How much of a country's history can a visitor learn from its main tourist attractions?
- Would you join a tour that included parts of a city that tourists usually avoid?
- When you visit a famous site, whose story interests you most: the builders, the rulers, or the people who lived nearby?
- Would you rather see the money from tourist tickets spent on the attraction or on services for people who live nearby?
- When do tours of residential neighborhoods become an invasion of privacy?
- Should places that are still used for worship charge tourists an entrance fee?
- Should a destination show its busiest streets in tourism ads, or focus on quiet places?
- Has a tourist attraction changed your mind about a person or an event in history?
- Would learning that a famous site's story was mostly a legend make it less worth visiting?
- How much can one excellent guide change a visit to a place you aren't interested in?
C1
Advanced (C1)
6 questions
- Can a tourist attraction tell a true story about a place while leaving out its worst history?
- When does adding entertainment to a historic site help people understand it, and when does it distract them?
- How much responsibility does a tourism company have when it sells a trip as a life-changing experience?
- Who should have the final say on limits to visitor numbers: residents, attraction owners, or an elected government?
- When a city's image depends on one landmark, what might visitors overlook?
- When does saying you've visited a famous place become a way of showing status? Does that change the value of the visit?