Travel, Tourism and Translation: Why Best Friends of Travellers

Since ages, people are traveling to foreign locations for work or leisure. Hence, Travel, Tourism and Translation share a common thread that keeps them combined in one way or the other. Be it common individuals or business tycoons, everyone finds travel to be the ‘best friend’. However, language barriers often hinder the path towards effective communication. This is why translation comes to your rescue.

Travel and Translation

Travel and Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world and contributes to more than ten per cent of the world’s total GDP. It also one of the biggest employers in the market, and therefore is of huge importance and significance. In today’s article we will discuss how travel, tourism and translation go hand in hand in this industry.

Similar to every other industry, it comes with its set of complications and challenges. Tours and travel offices can be found at various locations across the world, and they operate in a variety of languages. Despite this, travel and tour operators find it difficult to connect with their audience at most places.

The only permanent solution to this problem is to expand the language horizon of the operators, and that’s what we are going to discuss in today’s article.

Stay At Your Customers Location Via Translation

Unlike other industries in the market, travel and tourism is a truly global industry. Similar to any other business in any industry, your success will solely depend on your reaching your target customers no matter where they are located in the world. Traditionally tour and travel operators used to open offices at locations where the majority of the crowd speaks a common language which is similar to theirs.

However today the cultural diversity has widened, and therefore these organizations need to reach their customers across all corners of the globe. Historically the industry relied on communicating via English to communicate with local as well as international customers. The emergence of new tourist destinations across the world added with the introduction of new technology and communication tools and mediums have added to the desire of travellers communicating in their native languages.

Historically it has been proved that customers stay longer on the website when it is available in their local or regional languages. This is why Certified Website Localization is highly recommended for businesses that desire for local and global success. Further, people are more likely to buy from shops that speak their own language rather than communicating in one which is foreign to them. If you look at the statistics, you will find that the top travel destinations around the world don’t speak English at all.

All this being said, it is not physically or logistically possible for travel and tourism operators to open offices at all locations around the world. In this situation, the best possible solution to this challenge is to exploit translations services which are available in the market. Therefore it can be concluded that translation your best friend in the travel and tourism sector.

Traditional Methods Used In The Tour And Travel Industry

Historically the travel and tourism operators use a combination of stunning photographs, exciting videos and beautiful descriptions in order to convince customers into buying their travel and your packages. Therefore it is very important that these aspects are combined perfectly every time. In order to do this, travel agencies hire the best photographers in the market, video makers and editors and top-notch copywriters under their payroll. With the combined effort of all these people, they create stunning ad campaigns, fliers, travel brochures and mailers in order to woo their customer base to travel with them.

Now that the industry has progressed and domains have opened up, these organizations need to woo and seduce a larger audience base all of which speak a different language altogether. This calls for cross-cultural communication of the highest level and precision.

This calls for Certified Travel and Tourism Translation which are beyond standard translation. Individual translators or translator organizations who are working in the travel and tourism sector are expected to mediate the content in such a way that tourists from across the globe can understand and comprehend it. Doing so with a high level of precision and accuracy will guarantee more customers for the tourism agency as well as the translator agency hired by them.

Why Invest in localization?

The main reason why travel and tourism organizations should invest in localization is to generate more localized content which will ultimately help them generate more customers from regions across the globe. Although, there are multiple Localization Challenges, yet you can still manage to boost sales of your travel business, by hiring a reputed translation vendor.

There are multiple ways an organization can reach its linguistic goals, and ultimately the choice lies with the organization. Mentioned below are some of the popular methods organizations employ to achieve this goal.

1. Employing creative translation solutions

As mentioned above tourism organizations employ top-notch copywriters to generate unique and engaging content. Their job is to create content that inspires the audience to make a purchase in the most creative and engaging ways possible. This is similar to creative translation.

A creative translator tries to find a deeper meaning to the already existing content and translates the same into a language of their choice. In this process, the translator has to change, adapt and study the various content which is already available and then translate the same.

The reason why creative solution works best in the tourism industry is because it provides the audience with an online experience of what their vacation can actually feel like.

2.Prioritizing localization

Reaching your local tourists from across the world often requires you to localize everything they will see, use and feel before, during and after the vacation. In a way, everything needs to be localized. However, you need to remember that localization is a long and lengthy process whereas you will have stringent deadlines to meet. In this case, you need to prioritize what to localize first and follow the plan accordingly.

a)- Social Media Channels – In today’s competitive industry being on social media is one of the most important aspects no one can ignore. You need to be always available on the channels your customers are visiting and provide them with localized content. Your competitors might be providing them with content in English only and therefore by providing them content in their local or regional language you stand a chance to win them over. For example, you can post status updates and tweets on various social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram in local and regional languages. Posting a tweet in French and an Instagram story in Italian will help you gather audience from these countries.

b)- Company website – One of the first and foremost things you need to localize is your company website. In most cases it will be the first thing your customers will see and therefore having it in a local language will hugely increase your chances of success. Expanding the reach of your website will also help in your SEO efforts and therefore try to make your website available in more languages other than English. Before you go ahead with localizing your website, you need to ask yourself what are the Key Questions to Website Localization . Only after this can you go forward and hire a translation expert to make your company website localised.

c)- Office operation materials – There are many materials that you use in your day to day operation which can be easily overlooked. Some examples of things that can be translated include your contacts list, your signs and brochures, other written material and most importantly itineraries and travel guides. Having them in your customer’s local language will avoid confusion and increase your revenue at the end of the day. This will also help you in gaining their trust and thereby showcase your professionalism. For example, in your local office at Italy, you can make all the indoor and outdoor signs in their local language which is Italian.

d)- Travel blog – All major, as well as small-scale travel and tourism operators, have their own travel blog. In this blog, they provide an update on their day to day operations and also write engaging content which can get them, potential customers. However, most of these are in English, and therefore you can set yourself apart by having your travel blog in your customer’s local and regional language. Also, while creating your blog section, don’t forget to invest in multilingual SEO, as it will help in improving your business’s online presence, in respective target languages.

e)- This will help them create a picture of the memories and experiences during their travel with your organization, which will ultimately increase your customer base and increase your revenue.

Translating Tourism Content

Translating content for the tourism industry comes with its own set of challenges and complications that the organization has to face on a day to day basis. One of the most challenging aspects of translating the existing content is to keep up with the audience’s expectation at every stage. For example, if an organization targets the Spanish population, they want detailed information and figures, while if the same content is targeted to an English speaking audience, they want crisp and rosy sentences.

Another challenge is to take into consideration cultural idiosyncrasies. While some phrases and idioms may be acceptable to one culture, the other might find it to be completely unacceptable.

In order to make the most out of your translation efforts, you need to look for professional localization Services providers, like Tridindia that offers all kinds of translation, localization, voice-overs and other language related services. To know more, contact us with your detailed requirements!!

For more details, get in touch with us right away, call us at +91-8527599523 or mail us at [email protected]