2 . More people are travelling than ever before, and lower barriers to entry and falling costs means they are doing so for ________ periods.

The rise of “city breaks” 48-hour bursts of foreign cultures, easier on the pocket and annual leave balance has increased tourist numbers, but not their ________ spread. The same attractions have been used to market cities such as Paris, Barcelona and Venice for decades, and visitors use the same infrastructure (基础设施) as residents to reach them. “Too many people do the same thing at the exact same time,” says Font, an expert in tourism. “For ________, the city no longer belongs to them.”

In response to this situation, cities have come up with various solutions. For instance, Amsterdam has started advising visitors to seek ________ outside of the city center on its official website. “That takes courage, really, to do that. But only so many people will look at the website, and it means they can say to their residents they’re doing all they can to ________ congestion.”

But it also proposes a better way, which is called “de-tourism”: sustainable travel tips and ________ schedules for exploring a real Venice, off the paths beaten by the 28 million visitors who flock there each year.

A greater variety of ________ for prospective visitors — ideas for what to do in off-peak seasons, for example, or outside of the city center — can have the effect of removing them from already crowded landmarks, or ________ short breaks away in the first place. Longer stays ________ the pressure, says Font. ‘If you go to Paris for two days, you’re going to the Eiffel Tower. If you go for two weeks, you’re not going to go to the Eiffel Tower 14 times.” Similarly, repeat visitors have a better sense of the________, “We should be asking how we can get tourists to ________, not how to get them to come for the first time. If they’re coming for the fifth time, it is much easier to integrate their behaviors with ours.”

Font says cities could stand to be more ________ about the tourists they try to attract when the current metric for marketing success is how many there are, and how far they’ve come. “You’re thinking. ‘yeah but at what cost…’” He points to unpublished data from the Barcelona Tourist Board that prioritizes Japanese tourist for spending an average of 640 more per day than French tourists — a(n) ________ that fails to take into account their bigger carbon footprint. ________ tourists are also more likely to be repeat visitors that come at off-peak times, buy local products, and spread out to less crowded parts of the city — all productive steps towards more ________ tourism, and more peaceful relations with residents.

Animal-rights activists often complain that cute beasts get more sympathy than ugly ones. If so, one would think a lovely creature like the mink (貂) would be easy to protect. Yet in the Netherlands, mink is the only animal     1     can still legally be farmed for their fur. That is about to change. On August 28th the government brought forward to this year a ban     2     mink-farming that had been scheduled to take effect in 2025. The timetable was sped up not because mink had become more adorable,     3     because they can contract COVID-19 and spread it to humans.

Dutch farmers normally raised about 2.5 million minks a year,     4     (make) the Netherlands the world’s fourth-largest producer after Denmark, China and Poland. In April, a couple of minks and the farm hands who tended them     5     (diagnose) with COVID-19. Genetic tracing showed that at least two workers had probably been infected by mink, rather than the other way around. The affected animals were destroyed and stricter hygiene rules were imposed, but by summer the virus had spread to a third of the country’s farms.

That was a win for the Netherland’s Party for the Animals, which has four seats in the 150-member parliament. In 2013,     6     helped pass the law that gave mink farmers until 2025 to get out of the business. Some members of parliament claim that the compensation     7     (pay) for destroying the infected minks was higher than the market price for their fur.

Fur farmers say modern standards allow minks to be raised humanely, and     8     they are not a big reason for the spread of the virus. But minks tend to live by themselves instead of living in groups; animal-rights advocates say they cannot be raised humanely in small cages. As for COVID-19, the worry is     9     mink could serve as a medium for it to attack human immunization (免疫) programs. The industry’s value is modest, and polls show the public overwhelmingly opposes it. “In a democratic country, that widespread belief     10     translate into a political decision to ban fur farming,” says Esther Ouwehand, leader of the Party for the Animals. The farmers accept they are shutting down. The remaining argument is over money.