2.7% of the United State’s GDP is attributed to Travel and Tourism
Tourism activities and companies that support tourism have a close relationship with multilingual content. With people from different languages and cultures using their services, it’s not surprising how important translation services are to the travel and tourism industry. Add to this the growing need for translation as more companies and organizations, including cities, seek to market directly to customers in their native language- the subjects of travel and translation go perfectly hand in hand.
So, it’s also no surprise that there was a track at the GALA 2015 conference with several themes dedicated to tourism and translation. One of them, “Localization for travel”, emphasized how the online world and the move to digital platforms, have propelled the need for multilingual content in the travel industry in multiple locales.
The Role of Translation Services in the Tourism Industry
It’s interesting to note that the services needed are numerous like the set of languages needed: transcreation (to adapt the message), Machine Translation with or without post editing (to handle large amounts of content with different levels of quality), and translation (to localize the message). These services are requested in many file types from many repositories, and websites with different types of interfaces as well as travel reviews. With so many elements involved in the translation process- marketing material, user content generated, technical documentations and different user interfaces (apps, web, social)- the travel sector needs flexible, dynamic language translation services and an experienced localization provider.
On top of all this, travel content is constantly changing and needs to be updated at a fast speed. For example, a hotel needs the weather for the day available in multiple languages daily. Thus, a complex mix is necessary to fulfill the needs of the travel industry for big players like hotel and airports and small players like a bike rental company.
US received 16% of the world’s International tourist in 2014 (182 Million)
Citizens from countries with bigger wallets travel more- they include Germans, Americans, Chinese, British, and French. In particular, the number of Chinese travelers are on the rise and with their large population, the need for Chinese localization is as relevant as the need for German and French translation.
The Tourism Industry is noteworthy for the USA due not only to the fact that Americans are frequent travelers, but also that the USA is a popular destination for tourists from around the world. Today, while preparing this blog post, I learned while watching Bloomberg television that the travel industry in the USA produces more jobs than the agriculture sector.
Tourism is Great for the Economy!
Top international markets traveling to the U.S, and top forecasted growth markets.
The information presented by Jonathan Tisch, Chairman of Loews Hotels and president emeritus of the, US travel Association, stressed that international travel in the US is a driver for the economy and jobs- 8 million people work in travel and tourism all over the country.
The need for translation in the travel industry is intuitive, but were you aware of the importance of the travel industry for the USA? Of all the visitors to NYC in 2014, 22% were from international regions and were responsible for 50% of the money that was spent in New York City. International travel provides great business opportunities for the translation industry and for the US Economy!
