GMAT Essays (AWA)

Prompt:

The following appeared as part of an article in the travel section of a newspaper:
"Over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiessa has experienced unprecedented growth. This surge can be expected to continue in the coming years, fueled by recent social changes: personal incomes are rising, more leisure time is available, single-person households are more common, and people have a greater interest in gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of publications on the subject."

Essay:

The segment of the article above only claims that the recent growth of the restaurant industry in Spiessa occurred due to "personal incomes are rising, more leisure time is available, single-person households are more common, and people have a greater interest in gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of publications on the subject." However the article assumes that the growth is completely due to internal factors of the country of Spiessa and fails to mention the possibility of any outside influence whatsoever. Two of the points highlighted below detail what else the article could have included to build a more concrete statement.

Most importantly the article does not mention anything about an outside influence, one thing that could easily explain the growth of the restaurant industry is tourism. The nature of tourism is to explore local foods and what restaurants have to offer. By influences such as the country making visitation easier, or simply advertising the country more, these two reasons could easily be why more tourists could be entering the country resulting in the restaurant business growing so well in the last 10 years and beyond.

Another point that should be added is that the article only mentions social changes as the reason why the restaurant industry has been growing. Due to this article being about a industry that is based on how much money is spent, it is surprising that the article doesn't mention anything about the countries industrial finance sector and how it could affect the restaurant industry. Yes there is a portion in the article that says incomes are rising but it stops there. A few examples of how the countries financial situation can explain growth are bans on imports of supplies for restaurants could have been lifted resulting in lowers cost of operations for restaurants, also governmental programs so that restaurants have more leverage with how much they need to pay in taxes, costs of restaurant equipment, etc. could also explain the growth.

In conclusion the articles only mention that social changes are the reason for the growth of the restaurant industry is weak. Overall only one example is being applied to prove the segments point. Many other reasons such as tourism or improvements in the country's financial situation could also be attributed to the growth of the restaurant industry. If the segment was more ironed out with details and example the segment could have sounded more concrete and the subject of restaurant growth in Spiessa can be better explained.