At the risk of stating the obvious, most of us know what a challenge it can be travelling or merely being in places where our native language is not spoken. The feeling this inspires could best be summed up as being a ‘fish out of water’, flapping around uselessly as we try to get out point across, in much the same way as said fish! It is not only us non-foreign language speakers that go through this uncomfortable experience, but of course all those non-English speakers that we come into contact with, whether they be friends (or potential friends), business contacts or those poor souls charged with making our holiday a fun experience.
So this communication gap is something we might find ourselves tumbling into repeatedly! And naturally, this issue might pervade not only our attempted conversations during the holiday itself, but our dealings before and after, with tour companies, airlines and so on. Not only that, but attempted (and botched) attempts to breach this gap with shoddy translations, for example of websites, brochures, travel guides and so on, can introduce unwelcome confusions and complications into what would otherwise be a smooth and enjoyable holiday.
Quality tourism translation
From the point of view of travel companies and the information they provide for their customers, there is no doubt that they have everything to gain from being able to provide well-translated and written materials in the target languages of their customers or potential customers. We all know that, in tourism translation, clear and well-written materials immediately inspire confidence and create an aura of professionalism around the company in question. Despite the fact that such a company may indeed be very competent and able to deliver all the services on offer to highly professional standards, this impression can easily be damaged even by the simplest of errors in the languages of the clients they are communicating with.
Bad Menu Translations
Tourism translation also involves gastronomy. It is not unusual for business catering to large numbers tourisms from other countries to resort to such things as Google Translate in the production of their promotional materials with often humorous, if not in some cases rather disastrous results! At the very least that aura of amateurishness is created which most business owners are very keen to avoid. While this may often be good for a laugh, and smiling/laughing clients are a sought-after outcome, it goes without saying that laughing with rather than at is far more desirable in such cases! A particularly hilarious context for poor translations, or one might even go so far as to say dangerous, comes in the form of menus. All jokes aside, the potential for disaster here can be considerable, when one considers what can happen with food allergies and so forth.
[Tweet “In tourism translation, well-written materials immediately inspire confidence. Check it out! https://goo.gl/HIiIAR”]
Without wishing to overstate the point, poor translations or imprecise communications can easily result in a myriad of disappointments or inconveniences, such as for example getting lost or discovering that a hotel is not what one had hoped for or perhaps is not in the desired location. None of this might belong to the categories of ‘dangerous’ or ‘disastrous’, as in the allergy example above, but we could certainly say they might take the sheen off an otherwise perfect holiday/tourism experience. With the heavy competition that exists in the tourism industry today, we well know the importance of gaining rave reviews for tourism services, rather than merely adequate or god-forbid, poor.
Professional Tourism Translation
So this is where professional translation services come in, such as our translation agency offers. Our team of highly-trained translators are able to take a document of any type, those mentioned above for example, and to create a 100% professional translation in the required target language. All our translators write in their native languages and possess a high degree of knowledge of the language or languages to be translated from, so you can be sure that the end result will not even be distinguishable as a translation!
