CHALLENGES IN LEARNING TOURISM TERMINOLOGY: ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Abstract

The tourism industry is a cornerstone of the global economy, contributing approximately 10% to the world‘s GDP and demanding a highly specialized workforce proficient in domain-specific terminology. This article explores the multifaceted challenges encountered by learners of tourism terminology, drawing on an analysis of recent pedagogical, linguistic, and translation studies literature. Key obstacles include the rapid evolution of tourism language, leading to lexical gaps in dictionaries, terminological ambiguity and instability, significant cross-linguistic and cultural gaps, deficiencies in teaching materials, and a generally unsystematic pedagogical approach. Based on a critical synthesis of existing research, this paper proposes actionable recommendations. These include the systematic application of corpus linguistics methods for authentic vocabulary selection and glossary development, the implementation of task-based and experiential learning strategies, and the creation of standardized, multilingual term bases. This study concludes that a comprehensive, corpus-informed, culturally sensitive pedagogical framework is essential to equip learners with the precise and functional terminology required in the dynamic global tourism sector.