World News for Students of English

16-06-2026 15:00

Tourism is a huge multi-billion-dollar business in Scotland, but social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are changing things fast. Beautiful videos are going viral, and they turn quiet and remote natural places into famous hotspots overnight.

This brings a lot of money to local businesses, but it also creates massive problems for the people who live there. Thousands of visitors arrive in big campervans, block narrow single-track roads, and leave lots of rubbish behind. Local councils don’t have enough money to fix the broken roads every year. Even worse, many houses are being turned into holiday rentals, so local people can’t find a place to live.

To help save their communities, some cities are now introducing a new tourist tax and putting strict rules on short-term rentals. Influencers are also learning to be careful and are stopping promoting tiny places that don’t have enough car parking spaces for crowds.

Difficult words: remote (far away from big cities, towns, and places where most people live), hotspot (a very popular place where a lot of people go because it is famous or interesting), promote (to advertise something or show it online so that other people want to buy it or visit it).

You can watch the video news lower on this page.