80% of consumers are unlikely to buy travel services online if the website isn’t in their native language. This is a major problem for travel brands—at least those that don’t cater to international travelers.

In the travel industry, the ability to communicate in your target customer’s local language is essential. From hotels and airlines to online agencies, booking sites and more, every travel business has the potential to attract international customers through translation.

Here are three quick translation tips for providing a first-class experience to global travelers.

1. Localize all consumer touch points

Tourism and hospitality businesses promote their services overseas in many different ways. Travel magazines, user reviews, hotel brochures and restaurant menus are just a few examples of customer-facing content types that require translation.

International visitors should be able to access any part of your site in their language. It’s crucial to have a well translated online offering to attract new customers. To retain and serve them, you’re expected to localize every part of the customer journey. Every customer touch point brings your brand to life, building trust and loyalty so you can say “welcome back” again and again.

2. Use human, not machine translation

Copious amounts of content that undergo constant change sounds like a great fit for machine translation. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Not only do human linguists write with more creativity, machine translation negatively impacts SEO. Google constantly scans for machine translations, which hurt international search engine rankings.

Additionally, travel content is unique in that it doesn’t require an in-depth or specialized knowledge of technical terms. Like marketing copy, the purpose of travel content is to sell a service, so it doesn’t just have to just convey information—it also needs to be enticing. Given the right amount of context, human translation is your best bet for capturing the inviting message of your original text.

3. Develop a scalable workflow

As your brand begins to translate content at a greater speed and scale, traditional agencies will have trouble keeping up. When it comes to translating thousands of travel listings or user reviews, professional human translation can break the bank, especially from boutique agencies. This is where a crowd-platform approach to translation may offer more bang for your buck. Crowdsourced models enables thousands of translators to work simultaneously, allowing large projects to be completed quickly and at a lower price tag.

Don’t let language barriers get in the way of your guests’ getaways. Localizing your travel site may seem like an overwhelming and expensive undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be. At Gengo, we have experience working with travel brands of all sizes, helping them build trust in new markets with our people-powered translation platform.

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