Spanish for Tourism Textbooks: A SWOT Analysis to Determine their Present and Future Livros didáticos de Espanhol para turismo: Uma análise FOFA para determinar seu presente e futuro

Being Spanish one of the most frequent languages of study, this paper aims to analyze, through a SWOT study, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Spanish for tourism textbooks so as to determine their present and future. In doing so, the authors of this manuscript have carried out a qualitative and quantitative study. After an online discussion with four experienced language teachers, we have elaborated an observation checklist that contributes to the field of study and could serve as a tool to analyse language textbooks. We have applied this observation checklist to analyse ten Spanish for tourism textbooks. Results show that textbooks in this field have been adapted to the new realities of language teaching but still fail to include important elements for the correct development of all the skills.


Introduction
English for specific purposes (ESP) started in the 1960s in the United Kingdom ( JOHNS, 2012), and it is generally related to the teaching of a language "for use in a particular area of activity, for example, business or science" (MARCU, 2019, p. 309). Lafford (2012, p. 2) asserted that the main goal of ESP is "to prepare language students for the practical application of their second language in professional environments". It was not until 1815 that Spanish was included in university curricula (BROWN; THOMPSON, 2018) and taken seriously in higher education. Spanish has experienced a global expansion, as figures from the Cervantes Institute Report of 2021 attest. According to this institution, Spanish is the second most used language in Europe for international communication (after English) and the second most chosen language of study among English and French speakers. The number of Spanish speakers and users does not show any sign of decreasing, and data provided by this report indicate that by the year 2100, it will reach 690 million. Moreover, tourism is a significant activity for the economy of Spanish-speaking countries, as confirmed by analysis of data on the sector (BRIDA; OLIVERA; SEGARRA, 2021; GUTIÉRREZ-DOMÈNECH, 2021). Therefore, effective communication in this field is of utmost importance in several different aspects, such as understanding performance expectations, client satisfaction or ensuring that quality standards are met throughout the experience (KOSTIC BOBANOVIC;GRZINIC, 2011). Allowing professionals in this sector to develop proficient communicative skills means performing this activity successfully. Despite the predominance of English as a lingua franca, many communication problems arise due to the language barrier when it comes to using the English language. The importance of overcoming it while providing accurate information in this specialized field of tourism should not be neglected (ALCALDE PEÑALVER; SANTAMARÍA URBIETA, 2020).
Being Spanish such an important language worldwide ( JULIAN, 2019), the materials currently being used to teach it seem of utmost importance. Thus, we believe it is necessary to analyze current trends in Spanish for tourism coursebooks so as to determine their features by focusing on their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Only when these have been established, we will be able to draw the future lines of Spanish for tourism materials.
Based on this information, the research objectives (RO) of this paper are twofold and are paired with the following research questions (RQ): RQ1: What are Spanish textbooks' general and specialized features for tourist purposes?
RQ2: What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of current Spanish for tourism textbooks?
The ROs to answer these questions are the following: RO1: To analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Spanish for Tourism textbooks.
RO2: To analyze the general and specialized features of Spanish for tourism textbooks.
In order to answer these questions and meet the set objectives, this paper will continue with a theoretical framework in which we will analyze the main studies related to LSP and, specifically, the current state of Spanish in the field of Tourism. Then the methodology of the study will be explained, and the results will be analyzed. Finally, we will conclude with some final reflections and future lines of research. According to data published by the Eurobarometer 466 (EUROPEAN COMMISSION, 2018, p. 15), English is "the most frequent language of study", followed by French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Italian consecutively. The reason behind this dominance is clearly the fact that we live in a globalized world that "is characterized by a marked tendency to internationalization, which implies the dominant use of English as a lingua franca" (CALVI; SUAU-JIMÉNEZ, 2018, p. 1).
However, when asked about the language Europeans would like to learn, Spanish was the most frequently mentioned (35%). Moreover, Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world (STATISTA, 2021), with 543 million native speakers, and it is the "most frequently used foreign language for travelling purposes" (MILOVANOVIĆ et al., 2015, p. 740). This popularity of the Spanish language can also be analyzed from the point of view of the growing number of Spanish as a Foreign Language courses available (CASTILLO ARREDONDO; RODRÍGUEZ ZAPATERO; LÓPEZ-GUZMÁN, 2015) both within and outside the borders of Spanish-speaking countries. This tendency to travel to the country where the language is spoken has received the name of "language tourism", and it has been studied and analyzed from different viewpoints (GÓMEZ et al., 2018;IGLESIAS, 2015IGLESIAS, , 2016REDONDO-CARRETERO et al., 2017), in a variety of locations (BARRA; MARCO;CACHERO, 2019;DANNERER;FRANZ, 2018;DROZDZEWSKI, 2011;IGLESIAS et al., 2019), and with several languages (MAUNSELL et al., 2021;ZINGARO;CERVINI, 2021). It could be defined as the type of tourist that visits a city or country to learn a language, that is, a tourist activity undertaken by those travelers (or educational tourists) taking a trip which includes at least an overnight stay in a destination outside their usual place of residence for less than a year and for whom language learning is a primary or secondary part of their trip (IGLESIAS, 2014, p. 10). According to data collected in Córdoba (Spain) in 2010, the language tourist stays for more extended periods of time than the conventional tourist (PIÉDROLA ÓRTIZ; ARTACHO RUIZ; VILLASECA MOLINA, 2012).

Spanish for Specific Purposes or Spanish for Professional Purposes?
The field of LSP has exceeded its initial borders, and the concept it describes received different names for which there is no consensus on which to use. Hyland (2011, p. 201) opts for the specific purposes of teaching and defines it as a distinctive approach that focuses mainly on the "identification of the specific language features, discourse practices, and communicative skills of target groups, and on the teaching practices that recognize the particular subject matter and expertise of learners". On the other hand, Arnó-Macià (2012) prefers to emphasize the effective participation of students both in the academic or professional community and prefers the term "specific purposes". As for those scholars who opt for using "Spanish for professional purposes" (IVORRA-PÉREZ; GIMÉNEZ-MORENO, 2018), we believe the choice of the term is due to the fact that they want students to connect the subject with a certain profession and be more upfront as to what they should expect.
There is no doubt that there is a great variety of specific purposes (VRANIĆ PETKOVIĆ; GEORGIJEV, 2019). Aguirre Beltrán, Sánchez Lobato and Santos Gargallo (2012) distinguish three groups: (1) students who are studying in academic institutions and need the language to write papers or attend seminars (this specification could be entitled "Spanish for Academic Purposes"), (2) students who are currently working and have needs regarding communication on a specific sector, and (3) students who could be both studying and working and seek for a certificate of their level of Spanish on a specific field of study like, for instance, "Spanish for Business" or "Spanish for Tourism". The reason behind attending these courses determines their specialization, and how trainers need to plan their subjects and content is based on the answer to the following question: why are my students taking this course?
We have chosen to use the terminology "Spanish for Specific Purposes" as it is more frequently used by the authors of these fields of study. When the term (included between inverted commas to delimit the results) is searched for on Google Scholar, it reaches a total of 2,570,000, while "Spanish for Professional Purposes" amounts to 1,210,000. Regardless of the nomenclature chosen, it is a field of study that continues to grow and that shares two common features: (1) it is distinctive, and (2) it identifies "specific discursive, linguistic, cultural, and communicative characteristics of each specific-use context" (BROWN; THOMPSON, 2018, p. 101).

Spanish for Specific Purposes: Spanish for Tourism
The reasons behind learning Spanish are varied; among them, we highlight students' preference towards the language and its culture, their wish to work in the tourism field, and the importance students think Spanish has in this sector (MILOVANOVIĆ et al., 2015). As previously mentioned, Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, and it is the official language of 18 countries (MARIUS, 2021). Recent data show the increasing popularity of the language in places like India, where the number of speakers escalates every day (REHMAN, 2021), and an increasing tendency to offer LSP courses that focus on Spanish for tourism (LONG; USCINSKI, 2012).
The complexity of the tourism field, due to the variety of topics dealt with (transportation, gastronomy, culture, accommodation, security, practical information, or health) and the multiplicity of contexts in which they are presented (oral and written), defines a complex genre that calls for clear and specific training to achieve concrete objectives (MÉNDEZ SANTOS; GIL DEL MORAL, 2019). As Zahedpisheh, Abu Bakarand and Saffari (2017, p. 86) point out, "language proficiency is essential in all professional fields, perhaps all the more so in the tourism and hospitality industry due to its specific nature and concepts". However, this need for professionalization is not present, on occasions, among teachers who lack knowledge about the field of tourism (BEDIN; FERNÁNDEZ, 2019), which is a detriment to the quality of the courses offered.

Spanish for Specific Purposes: teaching materials
When referring to the teaching of Spanish for Specific Purposes (henceforth SSP), it is necessary to establish a list of wants and needs to meet students' requirements. Méndez Santos and Gil del Moral (2019) enumerate two aspects that need to be considered: (1) get to know the profile of the students, and (2) determine the methodology to be employed. Engaging our students and not falling for the already known (MORENO GARCÍA, 2011) is also of vital importance, especially when developing the knowledge and like for a second language. Regardless of the subject we teach, the choice of materials is always a red-hot topic to be discussed, mainly because it will determine the methodologies and ways of approaching the content (LIMA GONDIM; LIMA CARVALHO, 2019). Using a published textbook or creating one expressly for the Spanish for tourism classroom can make the difference between failure and success, mainly because of the possibilities that a self-customed manual may present regarding the inclusion of the highly positive use of authentic texts (MÉNDEZ SANTOS; GIL DEL MORAL, 2019) and, consequently, the presence of pragmatics. It is well known that a textbook in language instruction is one of the most frequently used components (MOHAMMADI; ABDI, 2014), and like any teaching material, they have advantages and disadvantages, as discussed by Richards and Renandya (2002). These authors indicated, as some of the main advantages, the fact that textbooks provide a structure and syllabus for a program, a variety of learning resources, their efficiency and visual appeal. However, they also mentioned that these resources could be expensive, they may include unauthentic language, and they may not meet students' needs. Therefore, a careful selection must be made to meet the objectives of the course they are used for (CUNNINGSWORTH, 1995). In this sense, many authors have provided elements for the evaluation of textbooks that can help establish criteria for their selection according to different methods (TOMLINSON, 1998;BRUNTON, 2009 et al.).
There is not a wide range of options to choose from when selecting SSP materials focused on the field of tourism (RAMOS OLIVEIRA; FERREIRA DA SILVA JÚNIOR, 2019), and most of them do not include the realities of tourism in all Spanish-speaking countries. Santana and Tavares, in 2001, expressed the need for teachers to go beyond the use of one textbook as this would lead to his or her tiring and unproductive teaching practice and, consequently, to the demotivation of students (MARCU, 2019). The materials need to address the needs of students, which vary in each individual and need to be adapted to the communicative tasks employed, in this case, in the tourist field (RAMOS OLIVEIRA; FERREIRA DA SILVA JÚNIOR, 2019; MENDES, 2011). This is the case of Cherkashina (2021), who, after a thorough analysis of the needs of students in the field of French for tourism, proposes a textbook model that could, although debatable, be extrapolated to other languages and training profiles. What is clear is that materials should not be restrictive and have to give teachers the chance to deviate themselves. Brown and Thompson (2018, p. 11), among the various challenges and opportunities the teaching of the Spanish language curriculum present, outnumbered the need "to equip instructors with the necessary tools" to properly teach language courses and to expand their variety on Spanish for the professions. These authors also found it necessary to remind teachers to "extend beyond textbook selection" (BROWN; THOMPSON, 2018, p. 108) and to express the "textbook-driven nature of many Spanish programs and how a textbookdriven curriculum may appear to obviate the need for detailed needs analyses" (BROWN; THOMPSON, 2018, p. 105). Moreover, there is a reluctance to the overspecialization of the professional contexts included in materials as they could lack the minimum tools to get along with the more general Spanish (MACU, 2019).
Online and technology-based materials are a necessity in today's SSP classroom not only because they meet the needs of current students but also because they open the door to real input, which makes the learning of Spanish significant and meaningful. The use of these materials has had positive outcomes among students, as recent research has attested with the inclusion of social media (CONCHEIRO, 2017; CONCHEIRO; MÉNDEZ SANTOS, 2018) or podcasts (RÍOS, 2017). To this, we should add the even-more popular tendency of teaching language for specific purposes in online or hybrid and blended learning environments (BIELOUSOVA, 2017;BROWN;THOMPSON, 2018). Although there are Spanish language textbooks that "currently contain information and activities that have been designed with the online and blended course in mind" (BROWN; THOMPSON, 2018, p. 2203), they have not been designed exclusively for these scenarios.

Methodology
Analyzing the needs of both teachers and students, as well as the situations of use of the studied language, is at the core of designing quality specific purposes courses (MORENO; TUTS, 2008; BEDIN; FERNÁNDEZ, 2019; CORDEIRO, 2019). As stated in the introduction of this paper, the aims that were set concerned the analysis of current textbooks that are being used when teaching Spanish for Specific Purposes in the field of Tourism. With this in mind, we have decided to employ a SWOT analysis tool to diagnose the current state of Spanish for tourism textbooks, with the objective of making timely decisions to improve their future. The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) methodology will help us analyze the direction Spanish for tourism textbooks are heading toward and ascertain what should be maintained, improved, or modified in these publications. As defined by Helms and Nixon (2010, p. 216), the origin of the term SWOT is unknown, but it "has grown as a key tool for addressing complex strategic situations by reducing the quantity of information to improve decision-making". It not only allows for the examination of internal strengths and weaknesses but also for the determination of opportunities and threats from an external point of view (KAHRAMAN; DEMIREL, Ç.N.; DEMIREL, T, 2007). The main goal, as stated by Büyüközkan and Ilicak (2019, p. 453), is to develop and select "a strategy that takes external and internal factors into account".
As of 2021, and from the last decade, we can number an extensive list of SWOT analyses applied to the study of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threads in the fields of language learning and teaching, which demonstrates the maturity of this methodology applied to this field of study. From the development of a SWOT analysis to study the self-learning potential regarding English as a foreign language (SOLER PARDO; ALCANTUD DÍAZ, 2020) to its use to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of language students towards computer-assisted language learning (TAFAZOLI; GÓMEZ-PARRA; HUERTAS-ABRIL, 2020). Also, we can name some studies in which the authors employ the use of the SWOT matrix to determine the appropriateness of an academic writing syllabus (MERKULOVA; NENASHEVA, 2016), an English syllabus at elementary school (GERMAN; EVAWANILESTARI; FITRIA, 2020), how suitable twelve English teaching Instagram profiles were for the teaching of a foreign language (REZAIE; CHALAK, 2021), or even the use of social networking sites in English language education (AHMED NAZIR; ABBAS; QURESHI, 2021).
However, when applied to the use of textbooks in language learning, this SWOT methodology is not very popular, and only a few studies can be highlighted, which date to the last century and focus mainly on teaching the English language. Among them, we find Wisniewska's (2011) analysis of English for Specific Purposes materials or Zheng's and Liu's (2011) review of one teaching material for higher vocational colleges. If we replace the teaching of the English language with the Spanish one, the analyses or research carried out are nonexistent. This calls not only for analyzing the textbooks in the market of Spanish for Tourism sectors but also for working on a SWOT analysis methodology that could be applied to the analysis of any specialized language textbook so that the academic community can rely on a tool to decide whether a textbook for language teaching meets the needs of both teachers and students.
The methodology of this manuscript is both qualitative and quantitative. On the one hand, it is qualitative because, after an online discussion with four experienced language teachers (with more than ten years of experience in the field of language teaching) from two Spanish universities, we were able to list the main elements that a "good" textbook should contain. On the other hand, it is quantitative as we applied the observation checklist to the analysis of 10 Spanish for tourism textbooks, and we obtained a score for each textbook which allowed us to determine their features and characteristics. The analysis was developed manually by checking each box in the observation checklist for each textbook.
After a two-hour recorded discussion, the participants shared their experiences in the field of language teaching so as to determine the features they considered to be important for any textbook devoted to teaching any language.
After an analysis carried out by the authors of this manuscript, we shaped an observation checklist (see Tables 1 and 2), which we believe could be considered as a contribution tool to the field of textbook analysis in the field of language teaching and language for specific purposes teaching. The textbook includes activities that promote group work and collaborative tasks. 2 The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice writing. 3 The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice listening. 4 The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice reading.

5
The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice speaking. 6 The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice interaction (oral and written). 7 The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice mediation (oral and written). 8 The textbook promotes the autonomous learning process of students. 9 The textbook includes clearly stated objectives.

10
The textbook includes tools to assess students' own learning process.

11
The organization and structure of the textbook help students find information.

12
The organization and structure of the textbook help teachers find information.

13
The textbook includes extra materials (digital book, audio, website, activity book, etc.)

14
The textbook includes activities for different learning speeds.

15
The textbook includes grammar structures according to the level.

16
The textbook includes activities that promote the use of ICTs (websites, mainly).

17
The textbook includes spelling-focused contents and activities.

18
The textbook includes diatopic variations of the vocabulary.

19
The textbook includes pronunciation activities (takes into account different accents).

Source: prepared by the authors
With the objective of taking into account general English instructors, as well as those that focus on a more specialized teaching practice, we have added a specific seven-item list. The textbook includes authentic oral texts related to *.

2
The textbook includes authentic written texts related to *.

3
The textbook includes updated *topics.

4
The textbook includes authentic photographs and pictograms related to *.

5
The textbook includes specific vocabulary related to *.

6
The textbook includes contextualized activities in the context of *.

7
The textbook includes cultural aspects of each *region.

Source: prepared by the authors
The asterisk included in Table 2 (items 1 to 7) should be replaced by the specialized field of the course (business, finances, or tourism) and by the regions where the language taught is spoken (item 7).
We believe Tables 1 and 2 bind all the items that a teacher should bear in mind when selecting the appropriate textbook for their language course. Having presented the tool, it is necessary to explain how educators should use it.

ASWOT Analysis of 10 Spanish for Tourism Textbooks
Textbooks seem to be the best friend of any language course, or as Naji Meidani and Pishghadam (2013, p. 84) put it, these "play a pivotal role in the realm of language teaching and learning, and they are looked upon as an indispensable vehicle for foreign language learning". There are many publishing companies that sell language textbooks, and we believe there is a gap in the market for a tool that could help teachers select the most suitable one for their needs and, more importantly, for their students' needs.
Being Spanish, as mentioned above, one of the languages of tourism, we find it paramount to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of ten Spanish for tourism textbooks that are currently being used and can be purchased nowadays. They have been published by four different publishing houses between 2008 and 2019 and cover the levels from A1 to C1 (COUNCIL OF EUROPE, 2001). We have limited the choice to 10 textbooks because we believe this is a reasonable sample to carry out a detailed analysis and also because these are the last 10 coursebooks published as of 2021. Below is the list of titles examined: To demonstrate the efficacy and ease of use of the observation checklist previously mentioned, we gave each publication a number (Table 3) and analyzed each Spanish textbook individually, going over manually all the items included and giving 1 point to those elements present in the coursebooks and 0 point to those non-existent. Once all the analysis had been carried out, we added the points for each item and also for each textbook. This way, we were able to know which textbook had the highest score, which one the lowest, and which items were the most and least present in all ten coursebooks. With all these results, we will be able to employ the SWOT methodology and describe the current situation of Spanish for Tourism textbooks and answer the research questions mentioned above.  Textbooks analysed  T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6  T7  T8 T9  T10  Total   GENERAL ITEMS   1 The textbook includes activities that promote group work and collaborative tasks. The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice interaction (oral and written).
The textbook includes a variety of activities to practice mediation (oral and written).
The textbook promotes the autonomous learning process of students. The textbook includes tools to assess students' own learning process.

2 11
Th e or g a n i z ati on a n d structure of the textbook h e l p s t u d e n t s f i n d information.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 12 Th e or g a n i z ati on a n d structure of the textbook h e l p t e a c h e r s f i n d information. The textbook includes g r a m m a r s t r u c t u r e s according to the level. Source: prepared by the authors After the analysis of the ten Spanish for tourism textbooks, we have a clearer image of what the current situation of these specialized language coursebooks is, and we are able to apply the SWOT methodology to the results of Table 4 and see which the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and threats of these publications are. Following Alcalde and Santamaría's (2021) SWOT analysis of corpus-based studies, adapted from Casero Gimón (2019), we will develop a narrative SWOT matrix of all textbooks to reason in a more detailed manner and present our reflections for future debates (ALIAGA; GUTIÉRREZ-BRAOJOS; FERNÁNDEZ-CANO, 2018). The score obtained in Table 4 for each item analyzed will also help us determine the strengths and weaknesses of each coursebook. Being 10 the maximum score possible to be obtained; those items having a punctuation of 5 or less will be considered weaknesses, whereas those with a score of 6 or more will be described as strengths. Weaknesses. Internal analysis.

Which competitive factors does this textbook include that others do not?
Which factors could be perceived by both teachers and students as advantages?
Which factors could be perceived by both teachers and students as disadvantages?
Which factors could reduce the success of the coursebook?
Opportunities. External analysis. Threats. External analysis.
Which are the new tendencies in the Spanish for tourism language teaching field?
Is Spanish for Tourism a field that needs more materials?
Which changes are happening in the Spanish language teaching field that could be seen as threats to the existence of these textbooks?
Could new and improved textbooks for Spanish for tourism see the light?

Strengths
Out of nineteen items, thirteen are strengths, as they have scored 6 or more in the final punctuation. This shows that referring to general aspects of Spanish for Tourism textbooks (henceforth SST), textbooks include competitive factors that will undoubtedly allow learners to acquire general skills to get by in Spanish. The most remarkable strengths of STTs are that they include a wide variety of activities to practice basic skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in every unit and at least twice per lesson. The skills of writing, reading and speaking appear in all ten books analyzed. Listening appears in nine of the books, which means that one of the coursebooks lacks reference to listening tasks. The reason behind this absence could be that the textbook (T2) in question is a manual used for the preparation of the Advanced Certification in Spanish for Tourism given by the Chamber of Commerce of the Spanish autonomous community of Madrid. The test which the book prepares the students for does not include any listening activities, as it focuses only on reading comprehension, grammar, and writing.
The Council of Europe published, in 2020, a Companion Volume that updated the document written in 2001 by the same organization. On the one hand, interaction was placed at the core of "the CEFR scheme of language" and "involves two or more parties co-constructing discourse" (COUNCIL OF EUROPE, 2020, p. 70). On the other hand, in mediation, "the learner acts as a social agent who creates bridges and helps to construct or convey meaning" (COUNCIL OF EUROPE, 2020, p. 90). The inclusion of interaction activities and strategies is frequent in all ten books. However, it should be noted that all of them focus on spoken interaction and not so much on the written one. In regard to mediation, this is only present in three STT coursebooks in translation written exercises. Nonetheless, when asked to work in groups, we could say that an implicit spoken mediation activity takes place as students are asked to mediate concepts and collaborate with other learners to construct meaning and facilitate collaborative interaction.
Collaborative work and group tasks are included in all the textbooks studied, and we can consider their presence as a strength. Oral tasks in which learners are asked to interact, work together, and come up with a decision or a written project to present to the rest of their classmates are frequent.
Another strength that these materials show is related to the structure of each unit, which is clear and allows both students and teachers to find information easily through pictograms or symbols that represent each skill or type of activity. Objectives and contents are almost always clearly described and stated at the beginning of every lesson.
The inclusion of extra materials in every publication is a common procedure for publishing companies to offer students a group of resources that reinforce the language learning process. Activity books, websites, audios, digital books, glossaries, transcriptions, grammar binders, or the appendices with solutions to every exercise are some of the extra materials included in almost all textbooks. This strength is closely linked to another one we have identified in all ten coursebooks: the promotion of the autonomous learning process of students. The STTs and the extra materials allow learners to work individually at their own learning pace and enhance the acquisition of concepts.
When writing textbooks to support the learning of a language, the authors have the common objective of engaging the reader, offering him or her activities, materials and resources to make the learning process as entertaining as possible. Without a doubt, new technologies open a new window of opportunity to the real world and to a variety of possibilities to use the language in authentic contexts. The inclusion of activities that promote the use of new technologies is considered a strength of these textbooks, as they include tasks which demand, for instance, a search for information on specific tourist websites.
Another general strength worth mentioning which, on some occasions, may be seen as a weakness due to its monotonous presentation is related to the inclusion of grammar structures according to the level in all ten textbooks. We include it as a strength when talking about the wide variety of exercises (multiple choice, open questions, graphs, etc.), but not so much when identifying them as motivational or engaging ways to present grammar.
When analyzing more specific strengths of Spanish for Tourism textbooks, we highlight five: (1) the inclusion of authentic written texts, (2) the use of authentic photographs and pictograms, (3) the integration of specific vocabulary related to tourism, (4) the development of contextualized activities in the context of tourism, and (5) the presence of cultural aspects of each Spanish-speaking region (including South America).Authentic written texts are common in all textbooks, even though some of them resort to more artificial materials that do not offer students real contact with the context of study. Topics dealt with are somehow updated, although we consider this a very difficult objective to be achieved by textbooks as tourist reality goes at a faster speed than the publication of such coursebooks. We believe, for instance, that topics such as those that have to do with more updated topics (i.e., Covid-19) will have to be seen in class with the help of extra materials not included in these books.
This authenticity, but lack of update, is also present when referring to the photographs included. STTs all include a variety of photographs that help readers scaffold a concept or identify it with their own reality. However, these images are rarely updated, regardless of the year the textbook was published.
Two of the main specific strengths of these coursebooks have to do with the importance given to the vocabulary and its use in real contexts and situations, which allows learners to put it into practice at a restaurant, at a hotel, or at the airport.
The language policy of the Council of Europe promotes the rich heritage of languages in Europe, as well as their culture, because they are a "common resource to be protected and developed and that a major educational effort is needed to convert that diversity from a barrier to communication into a source of mutual enrichment and understanding" (COUNCIL OF EUROPE, 2001, p. 2). We believe this effort is represented in STTs as 6 out of 10 textbooks mention the variety of cultures of each Spanish-speaking region around the world.
As a summary of the strengths, general and specific, of the ten textbooks studied, we have determined that the items with the highest score (6 or more points) and, consequently, those considered more positive for both teachers and students are the following: Some activities to work on complex skills (interaction).
Clear and organized structure of units (for both teachers and students).
Extra materials that engage students in the learning process and offer the possibility of promoting the autonomous learning process.
Wide variety of grammar activities.
Activities that promote the use of new technologies.

Authentic written texts
Specific vocabulary related to tourism Contextualized activities in the context of tourism

Authentic photographs and pictograms
Cultural aspects of each Spanish-speaking region and country Source: prepared by the authors

Weaknesses
When identifying the general weaknesses of STTs, we took into account the items that obtained a score of 5 or less. We believe this score represents the aspects that should be taken into close consideration in these textbooks, as they are also part of language teaching. As mentioned before, the skill of mediation was included in the 2001 CEFR document to define those tasks in which the "language user is not concerned to express his/her own meanings, but simply to act as an intermediary between interlocutors who are unable to understand each other directly" (COUNCIL OF EUROPE, 2001, p. 87). The inclusion of this skill in the textbooks analyzed is weak, as only 3 out of 10 develop activities in which students have to mediate, solely in a written way, between the Spanish language and their mother tongue.
As stated by Jamrus and Razali (2019, p. 64), "a very important element of formative assessment is giving and receiving feedback". On some occasions, due to the large number of students in the classroom or the place in which these classes take place (i.e. online), teachers do not have the time or the tools to give constant feedback to their students. Fortunately, "students themselves can be excellent sources of feedback through self-assessment" ( JAMRUS; RAZALI, 2019, p. 64). Textbooks should promote self-assessment on their pages. However, only 2 out of 10 books analyzed have included observation checklists for students to selfevaluate their progress. We believe this is one of the weaknesses of STTs, which could reduce the success of the coursebook and could determine the selection of one over the others.
Language subjects, as well as other content subjects, should consider the learning speed of learners, as every student is different and has different needs. Only 2 out of the 10 textbooks include extension activities within their pages, or on the teachers' book pages, to address every learner. This reality is at odds with current language teaching-learning theories that promote Universal Design Learning (UDL) and that should be part of any language curriculum, as stated by several authors of the field (FERNÁNDEZ PORTERO, 2018).
With a score of 5, spelling-focused contents and activities are scarcely present in the textbooks studied, as only half of them include tasks to enhance spelling in Spanish. As for pronunciation, only 4 out of the 10 textbooks incorporate tasks or contents related to Spanish pronunciation.
Diatopic variations of vocabulary are almost non-existent in STTs, which we believe would be necessary to be tackled if the learners of Spanish for tourism purposes encounter travelers from different Spanish-speaking countries.
The main weaknesses we identified when speaking about STTs have to do with the lack of authentic oral texts and with the lack of updated tourist topics. We believe that it is difficult to present real conversations in a language textbook, as these should be adapted to the level of the book, and authentic listening activities are more present in higher levels than in lower levels. However, we identified very few authentic oral tourist texts even in higher-level textbooks.
The second main specialized weakness has to do with the lack of updated tourist topics, which may be the main reason why teachers opt for not using a textbook in their classes, as any tourism-related profession would have to be aware of the world's situation to be able to answer to the needs of tourists.  Lack of tools to assess students' learning process.
Lack of activities for different learning speeds.
Lack of activities and contents spelling focused.
Lack of pronunciation activities and contents.
Lack of diatopic variations of the vocabulary SPANISH FOR TOURISM Lack of authentic oral texts.
Lack of updated tourist topics.
Source: prepared by the authors

Opportunities
After analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of Spanish for tourism textbooks, we can identify the opportunities that they pose for future tobe-published coursebooks. These opportunities walk the same path of new technologies, as they can benefit one another, as well as assist the participants in the learning-teaching process. The digital book is an opportunity for STTs textbooks to address the shortfall of, as included in Table 7, authentic oral texts and, mainly, updated tourist topics.
As stated by Kessler (2018, p. 205), "we are living in a time with unprecedented opportunities to communicate with others in authentic and compelling linguistically and culturally contextualized domains", which call for more collaborative tools and spaces, mashups, automation, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, gamified experiences, corpora or even translation tools. Kessler and Hubbard (2017) suggest teachers need to be equipped for these changing realities. These should be the starting point of future digital textbooks, as we believe almost all weaknesses pointed out in this analysis could be addressed with the use of digital materials.
Digital tools offer publishing companies the possibility of including extra materials that would promote the autonomous and lifelong learning of students, as well as the adaptation to their learning speeds. These items, together with pronunciation activities, spelling, self-assessment, and mediation, do not represent any challenge for the digital world as of today and even less for language learning in the near future.

Threats
The lack of authenticity and update, as well as the limitations that these textbooks have, are considered the main threats to textbooks in general. Because they are never enough for most teachers of Spanish for tourism, or of any specialized field, the constant need to look for extra materials to offer students the most updated and significant topics is what drives teachers away from the sole use of a coursebook in their classes.
Informal learning could be considered one of the main threats to coursebooks, or even language learning in general, as it is a clear example of how students can conduct their learning experience outside of formal educational channels, choosing what they will engage with and enjoying "a sense of fun and self-paced exploration of numerous topics" (LANGE, 2018, p. 1).
We believe online learning, as well as blended learning, is also a paramount threat to the traditional language textbook as teachers make use of a Learning Management System (LMS), such as Moodle or Canvas, to upload their materials in any given format, even more so in the current health crisis we are immersed.
The never-ending list of web applications available also represents a major threat to textbooks, as they provide teachers with the possibility of offering authentic oral and written texts, and they offer students a new and more engaging way of using the language. Although this is not the objective of this research, we present a preliminary list of software and applications that could pose a threat to SSTs, and that could be the reason why teachers of this subject prefer to use extra materials to complement the content of textbooks. We are aware of the fact that there may be many other applications and websites suitable for the practice of the Spanish language in the field of tourism and that these may be outdated in a few years, but they are representative of the websites available nowadays to be in contact with real users of the language, practice all the skills and be engaged in the process of learning a foreign language anywhere in the world. All of it without the need for a textbook. We believe this may be the greatest threat coursebooks would have to face in the near future: the wide variety of tools available and at a constant update, most of them at very reasonable prices. However, knowing how to use them correctly in the classroom may be considered the greatest advantage for teachers and the reason for preferring the use of a coursebook, which includes ready-to-use materials and contents.

Conclusions
Learning a language for professional purposes calls for updated materials that meet the needs of both students and learners. Thus, this analysis of 10 Spanish for tourism textbooks has allowed us to outline their strengths and weaknesses, as well as to point out the opportunities and threats that these resources have. Through this SWOT analysis, we demonstrated that the perfect textbook does not exist and that they all have positive and negative points. Besides, our main objective was to determine how Spanish for tourism textbooks address the reality of tourism and how it is taught in these materials. We can highlight that the SWOT analysis carried out proves that STTs have more strengths than weaknesses but that the external elements (threats and opportunities) that the digital world poses could evidence the survival of textbooks.
All 10 textbooks present tasks and activities that help learners develop the four basic skills, although more attention should be paid to complex ones, such as mediation. Moreover, the way in which content is presented to learners and teachers makes the learning process easier, clear, collaborative, and autonomous. The analysis manifests that STTs are not oblivious to new technologies, and they include them as extra materials or in tasks in which students must look for information and do research.
When talking about Spanish for tourism content in textbooks, this includes specific vocabulary, contextualized activities and cultural aspects from each Spanish-speaking region in the world. Strengths outnumber weaknesses as there are only 2 items considered as such: the lack of inclusion of authentic oral texts and the lack of updated tourist topics. We believe the former improves as the level of students advances, and the latter has to do with the rapid world where we live in.
Online learning and new tools and resources, such as those that have to do with informal learning, virtual reality, or collaborative spaces, may represent a challenge for traditional textbooks if these are not adapted to the new realities of language learning. Even more so in the case of teaching Spanish for tourism once the constant need to be in contact with new realities (for instance, that of the Covid-19 pandemic) is paramount for the profession and use of the language in professional contexts.
We can determine that this SWOT analysis has demonstrated that Spanish for tourism textbooks have evolved in the last decades and have been adapted to the new realities of education. However, it would be necessary to carry out a study in which we could assess the frequency of use of textbooks in the Spanish for tourism classroom, and if not used, understand the reasons behind teachers' choice not to depend on a textbook and use a wide variety of authentic materials available on the Internet.