Tourism translation: the heart of your marketing strategy

Having an effective marketing strategy is essential for the success of a business. This should include adapting any materials relating to your products or services so that they suit the needs of your customers. For the tourism sector, this is where translation comes into play. But why is tourism translation so important when it comes to promoting your business?

Translation and tourism

Nowadays, the travel and tourism industry is a global and multilingual sector. Thanks to globalisation and development in travel, more and more tourists are travelling abroad than ever before.

By having international multilingual support, businesses can attract international customers while also making their trip hassle-free, delivering a great customer experience. This in turn builds customer loyalty and helps you reach more potential clients through word of mouth.

This means that translation is essential if you want to reach as many people as possible, in as many countries as possible. Opening your business to foreign markets can pose multiple challenges, but in terms of return on investment, it can really pay off.

Tourism is a broad sector, covering a wide range of companies specialising in a variety of different services, including:

·         Hospitality (hotels, hostels)

·         Services (events, guides, activities)

·         Gastronomy (restaurants, bars, pubs) 

·         Transport (tourist buses, cruises) 

·         Attractions (museums, monuments, tourism offices)

Since tourism covers a wide range of products and services, the type of content to be translated is equally as broad. This includes everything from travel guides, maps and menus to hotel and destination descriptions. Because of this diversity, tourism also involves a variety of document types, such as brochures, documents, blog posts and websites. 

Nowadays, information is readily available on the internet and this is generally the first place people go to look for something they need. As such, you should pay special attention to translating your website and digital marketing strategies, like social media, email, paid ads and SEO. You will also need to translate your content regularly in order to maintain consistency and deliver maximum ROI. 

Translation and digital marketing for tourism translations

Translation is essential at every stage of your digital marketing strategy.  As with all translation, your texts must be accurate in order to protect you company’s image. However, with material that promotes your business, it is also important that the content resonates with your target market, leaving the right impression.

By using a professional translator, you can make sure that all the nuances of the source text are conveyed accurately in the target language. They will be able to choose the right terminology for accuracy, while also conveying the right tone and style to help engage your audience.

Specialist skills of a tourism translator

There are also several other specialist areas of translation which are essential for different types of tourism texts, the first being keywords. Customers are more likely to search for what they want in their mother tongue, especially since many tourists only speak their native language. If you want to make sure your website and ads appear in all the right searches, then keywords are especially important.

Since searching habits vary from culture to culture, using direct translations from dictionaries will not give the best results. If you want your website to rank higher in the right search engine results, then you need to tailor your SEO strategy to each language and culture. This includes choosing the right keywords.

Cultural adaptation is also an important skill, especially when it comes to translating tourism brochures. These documents are often filled with cultural references that may not have an equivalent in the target language. If the content is translated directly, then the meaning could be lost and the reader left confused.

An experienced translator will be able to adapt the cultural elements in a way that resonates with the target audience, while still preserving the source culture. This type of translation allows tourists to engage directly with the source culture in a way that still feels familiar to them. The result is a translation that makes the area featured in the brochure appear all the more attractive.

Then there are companies like airlines, travel agencies, hotels and airports who adapt their communication to the way their customer talks. This also means adapting the content to create an engaging and familiar message that resonates with the customer.

The translator needs to respect the tone of the original text, choosing words to convey a tone with a similar effect in the target language. This requires in-depth knowledge of the target country, which is why it is essential that you work with native speakers when translating your documents.

Why Intertranslations?

The success of your multilingual communication strategy all depends on the quality of your translations. Done correctly, translation will help grow your tourism business by allowing you to reach a wider audience from all over the world.

At Intertranslations, we have over 20 years of experience in delivering quality translation services. Working with a large network of professional translators, we offer tourism translation services with experienced experts specialising in the field of travel and tourism.

Using professional tourism translation services will help you engage your audience and avoid errors. This will show customers your dedication to delivering the very best experience right from the start, inspiring confidence in your services. With a great translation, you can protect your brand’s reputation while growing your company and making the most of your marketing strategies.

Get in touch today to learn more about our tourism translation services.