Translation and Tourism: A combination between marketing and style!

The translation of a tourism text is, therefore, very closely linked to marketing and, from a linguistic standpoint, the translator must always ask whether the advertising choices, like the use of terminology, rhymes, alliteration and metaphors, have an equivalent in the target language, or whether they’re appropriate in the target language, or whether an alternative solution is required.

Translated tourism texts are usually published in brochures, booklets, newspapers, presentations, menus, magazines, coupons and, in particular, on Websites—which today are the fastest way of communicating promotions in real time to millions of customers. It is very important for the Website for a hotel, restaurant and/or tour operator to always be among the first few results in the Internet search engines.

The translation of a multilingual Website for the tourism sector has to take into account the search keywords actually used by Web users, such as “low cost flights”, “last minute deals”, “special offer holidays”, “Christmas cruises”, “hotel in Rome”, “hotel in London” etc., and to optimize not just the texts in the target foreign language, but also the metatags, like the title, description, and ALT attributes for the pictures.