As the weather starts to get nicer and more spring-like in this part of the Western hemisphere, we are getting more and more requests to translate tourist- and tourism-related documents. Whether you want a translator to translate your travel brochures, trip schedule, language guides, hotel reviews, or anything else to help entice tourists from around the world to visit your destination hotspot, there are four important questions to ask before you hire a translator that will save you money AND a lot of time.
First, who is the intended audience of the document(s) to be translated? Is your translation targeting the local population or foreign travellers? Are you translating documents for tourists, resort staff or employees at a travel agency? Someone else? Who is your audience, what are they like and what do they like?
Knowing who your audience is and most importantly, understanding exactly what your audience needs from the translated information, is essential to the success of your multilingual project. It’s also important to convey this information to your translation firm because it will help ensure the translator produces a translation that uses the right vocabulary, level of language and writing style suitable for a well written, idiomatic translation that speaks to your target audience. Translating an advertisement that will appear in a local or national publication will require a different tone and writing style than a pamphlet that provides safety information and tips for female travellers, for example.
Second, what kind of translation materials are you producing? Are you having a brochure, a website, informational packages or other written documents translated? Are the materials intended to provide information to your customers before they buy, when they buy, or when they arrive at the destination on vacation? Knowing the answers to these questions can help the translator identify other marketing opportunities that you may not have considered, such as complementary audio or visual products in your customer’s own language.
Third, what kind of graphic content are you providing and will you need to localize it for a different target audience? Translations for the tourist industry must be culturally appropriate both in terms of the translated text and the graphic, video or audio components that complement them. If your current graphics are not appropriate for the readers of your translated documents, you risk alienating them. Discuss whether your translation company can provide an additional service to localize your graphics or produce new ones to suit the audience of your tourist translations.
Fourth, do you have any previous translations, terminology glossaries or terminology reference tools that might be helpful for the translator of this specific project? Previous translations or term databases can help a translator who is new to the project maintain consistent terminology that maintains your unique image, voice and brand.
These are four easy but important questions to ask before you hire a translator to translate your tourism documents into another language. Of course, the beauty of these open-ended questions is that they can all be applied to other specialized industries and sectors, regardless of the type of documents you are translating, so what are you waiting for? Ask away!
