Lost in Translation? Tips to win customer loyalty in hospitality industry

In this digital age, tourists and travellers across the world want to experience hassle-free and enjoyable services. It is, therefore, crucial for players in the tourism and hospitality industry to develop strategic communications that can help them to penetrate new markets and expand their customer base. As the potential and loyal customer base of this industry are expanded across the world, market understanding and seamless communication is the foundation for a top-notch hospitality and tourism business.

Research & Booking Process

Through digitalisation, hospitality and tourism potential customers are mostly online. With provided mobile apps and search tools, customers search for information and plan the trip by themselves. This means communication in their languages is essential to capture customers at the first stages of their trip planning. This can be done through content development, community seeding, advertisements, and social media posts in customers’ language. Providing a high-quality translation for the tourism sector is essential as a misunderstanding and cultural taboo can cause translated content steering potential customers away from your travel and leisure services.

Customer Satisfaction 

Knowing the language can help businesses to gather insights from potential customers from different countries to provide services that are customized for them. Cornell University conducted a study of hotel guests among 8 countries and found that the criteria to evaluate satisfaction varied greatly among countries. In the US, Canada, and other countries, price is the determining factor in choosing a hotel. Yet, in Italy, it was reputation, whereas in Spain, it is the previous hotel experience.

The mentioned differences can range from specific legal terminology between countries to basic greetings, all of which can have a massive impact in business’ reputation if the services are not localised appropriately. However, international customers do not speak a unified language. Instead, they use different languages and slangs that are bounded by specific geographical and cultural settings. Therefore, having linguistic experts, who understand languages used by different cultural and sub-cultural communities, is a competitive advantage for tourism and hospitality businesses.

Why translation service matters for hospitality and tourism industry

Partner with a translation firm is compulsory for hospitality and tourism companies. These translation firms do not only provide translation services for your promotion and service materials but also act as a consultant and cultural experts. This extension can help your company to penetrate a new market, grow sales, and raise brand awareness. By speaking in the right language to different target customers, your hospitality and tourism business can persuade potential customers and can provide current customers with tailored services.

In particular, hospitality and tourism companies can leverage their translation firm for services such as:

• Advertising and sales copy transcreation
• Professional multilanguage email marketing template
• Localising marketing collateral such as brochures, slogan, mission, vision statement
• Transcreating digital content: websites, blogs, social media materials (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc)
• Video subtitling, voiceover or dubbing
• Multilingual menu
• Other branding content transcreation

elionetwork provides one-stop-shop translation services for your hospitality and tourism business. We are an international translation team who are native speakers and writers of over 55 of the world’s most popular languages. We speak and write like local and sub-cultures’ members. We do not only translate but localise the materials, which is a top-notch level for your businesses to gain customers’ awareness and trust.