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Translation for the global travel industry: attention to detail pays |
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Translation for the global travel industry: attention to detailpays
As the World Travel Market opens in London, with over 50,000representatives from 190 different countries, what better timeto consider how travel and tourism as a sector can best respondto the challenge of communicating internationally and growingoverseas markets. Travel and tourism is an inherentlyinternational industry, and is already one of the largest onlinemarket sectors. But companies in this sector could grow theirrevenue significantly if they were to address the localisationof products more professionally and market themselves moreeffectively on the Internet.
Tailoring your message to speak the buyer's language
The simple fact is that you need to address users of yourservice in their own language. Although English is theinternational business language, research has shown that evenfluent English speakers are much more likely to buy from acompany whose website has content in their native tongue.Producing and maintaining multi-lingual content has become evenmore important in the last couple of years, as Internet growthin emerging markets has reduced the market share of Englishonline (based on page views) from over 50% in 2002 to under 30%now.
As with all marketing copy, web content selling travel productsmust be closely tailored to the potential buyer's needs anddesires. This is more important when selling an intangibleexperience, which must be exciting, luxurious and differentenough to get the prospective buyer's juices flowing and toencourage him to make a purchase. The task becomes even morechallenging when you are seeking to attract buyers fromdifferent countries, all of whom have different culturalbackgrounds and have different which you need to push. Forexample, as Roy Graff, a former director of octopustravel.com inChina, explains, you wouldn't market to Chinese visitors in thesame way as you would to westerners:
"Chinese people coming to the UK are interested in the country'shistory, but their real focus is on shopping. Many itemsconsidered by the Chinese to be luxurious are much cheaper here,and they enjoy trips to places like Bicester village where theycan buy British products for less than they can at home. TheChinese are less interested in cultural events like theatrewhere the foreign words and cultural references wouldn'tresonate with them."
So when trying to attract Chinese (or indeed, any other)visitors to come to these shores, it's worth keeping at theforefront of one's mind what exactly is going to sell them onthe idea of making that trip. This is where the localisation ofcopy becomes a necessity in order to target your messageappropriately. As more people the world over use the Internet toplan their trips rather than going through traditional travelagencies, it is vital that your message bridges any cultural andlinguistic divides which might separate you from your targetcustomers.
Managing multi-lingual content
Professional translation and localisation are now a necessityfor travel companies and tourism organisations alike. But havingall this material in foreign languages can pose its ownchallenges. How do you ensure that foreign character sets appearappropriately on your website? How can you avoid your staffhaving to copy and paste material in a language they don't knowinto your content management system (a recipe for disaster, ifour experience is anything to go by!)? How do you ensure you areusing translation technologies effectively to keep costs down?We at Lingo24 have seen companies try to manage their translatedcontent in-house, and we've witnessed some well-intentioned buthorrendously inefficient attempts to take a perfectly goodwebsite and make it multi-lingual. It is not a simple matter,and it's something translation service providers are best placedto handle in consultation with client companies. As with otherweb projects, it is best to plan how a multi-lingual websitewill work well before it is actually constructed.
Translate and they will come?
Of course, there is little point having a slick multi-lingualwebsite if you aren't able to attract enough of the rightvisitors to make a good return on your investment in foreignlanguage content. The key is to establish where you need toappear online, be it through search engine listings or onpartner websites, in order to drive targeted traffic. To achievethis, you really need to have an understanding of the 'onlinescene' in each of your target markets, and a partner who canhelp you achieve the positioning that will generate returns.It's also important to measure both your successes and failuresin online marketing, as this will enable you to optimise yourcampaigns over time. In an online marketplace as crowded andcompetitive as travel and tourism, those companies that seizethe initiative to build well-targeted, highly visible andmanageable, multi-lingual sites will reap the rewards now andfor years to come.
About the author:
Credits: This article was written by Christian Arno, themanaging director of the translation services provider Lingo24 .
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