Use of connectors and and prepositions with verbs

Question

First question here, hope to not be making a mistake. I searched in the forum but I could not find something related (Probably due to my limited knowledge about English grammar terminology)
To put you all in context, today I delivered an essay for revision and there were two sentences which were considered wrong, these sentences were.

During the recent years there have been many reasons that have encouraged the people to travel.

(My teacher considered that the "the" was unnecessary)

During the last decades the costs associated with traveling have been reduced strongly giving to the consumers the opportunity ....

(They suggested that the sentence should be '... giving the consumers' instead of 'giving to the consumers'.)
Could you please tell me why I was wrong and which are the rules I should follow when using these 'connectors' to deal with nouns and subjects.

CAROLYN · Answer

During the recent years there have been many reasons that have encouraged the people to travel.  In this sentence, the use of "the" is unnecessary or in not always needed before plural nouns. The readability of the text improves when you get rid of extra "sticky" words like articles. It smooths out the flow: During recent years...
Likewise, the other example is wordy:   During the last decades, the costs associated with traveling have been reduced, giving the consumers the opportunity.
Rephrasing helps to improve the flow and readability.
During the last decades, the costs associated with traveling have been reduced strongly, giving the consumers the opportunity...

Use of connectors and and prepositions with verbs

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