Ni hao? Namasté! Mingalabar! Kamusta! Hola! Ciao!
Hospitality is everything about making someone feel welcome and nothing does that better than greeting them in their own language.
Not only does it immediately put one at ease, it goes beyond the whistles and bells of gorgeous interior decor and fancy fittings. It is the very fundamental spirit and soul of what hospitality is all about.
An audacious claim?
Perhaps not, when one considers that providing your guests with the confidence of knowing that they will be understood is the very first step in making them feel at home in your establishment. And the effects of establishing that sense of psychological security is exponential.
For one, it builds trust in your establishment, opening guests up to being at greater ease when that fear of potential difficulties in communication is allayed at an early stage. It also provides guests with the additional peace of mind that is integral to an environment made for rest and restoration, the basic tenets of any hotel and hospitality establishment.
However, it is not enough for establishments to merely know the various greetings of its guests and use them accordingly.
There is also the written word, the second default means by which we communicate, after verbal communication.
In this form of communication, nothing inspires confidence in hotel guests more than having the ability to browse through content in their native languages.
This may be in the form of the hotel’s website, booking engine, banner ads, advertisements, menus, in-room directories – basically any marketing, branding and revenue-generating collateral.
Now, it may seem like a tall order at first, given the plethora of languages out there, but this is precisely where engaging the expertise of a global transcreation (creative translation) agency like IPPWORLD really pays off.
And, as a hospitality establishment, given how competitive the industry is, it is definitely worth the time and effort stepping back to address where improvements in customer service and user experience can be made.
Transcreation experts are not only equipped with the ability to translate creatively, paying attention to nuances in languages and polishing content to suit the needs of the target audiences (your potential guests), they are also able to help establishments plug the holes in their services where language may pose a barrier.
Transcreation drives visual imageries that elicit an emotional response from readers, as they imagine themselves basking in the comforts of the establishment even before setting foot on its premises.
This extends to providing your guests with comprehensive information on the establishment before they step through its doors.
By marketing your hotel in more languages that just English, potential guests from around the world have a heads-up on the array of services offered at the hotel.
What’s more, content transcreation of your brand website into the major languages of an establishment’s clientele makes for easier visibility on search engines.
The enhanced SEO not only places the establishment in a much higher position in search results, it also provides a smoother booking process for clients.
This flexibility at being able to provide clients with the ease of communication in their own languages is not something that is exclusive to hospitality alone.
75% of all web consumers indicate that being able to access information on products in their own language far outweighs price, defying commonly held notions of consumer habits.
That’s 3 in every 4 consumers!
At an initial glance, transcreation may not seem like the most obvious way to improve hospitality. However, research on consumer behaviour has clearly shown that it is integral in staying competitive in the market, not forgetting its impact in widening one’s global customer base, by catering to a customer’s specific needs before they can even step into the hotel’s threshold.
And the bonus factor about transcreating?
It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to bump up one’s visibility and overall presence in the hospitality and travel industry.
Especially when there are folks like those in IPPWORLD with the relevant expertise who are ready to help at the drop of a hat.
If that does not convince you, think about your own consumer habits, the ease at which you make online purchases on websites that are in your own native languages.
You get online, intending to shop and you find the perfect website that offers you exactly the products you are searching for – and at a lower price than usual.
It’s a legitimate site with all the security features you need so you know you can shop safely. Except that the site is in a language foreign to you.
You start copying-and-pasting paragraphs and paragraphs for a generic online automated translation software to translate, but we all know how auto-translations can go terribly wrong and eventually, the effort at getting that lower price starts to feel like it’s not worth it.
You give up and go back to another site that speaks your own language.
That previous website once again loses yet another potential customer in a market worth millions. It will continue to lose out because it does not have content in more than one language.
Tie this in with the fact that despite the recession COVID has brought upon the global economy, the market for translation services has continued growing.
Still considering?
It’s time to get past the evocative “ni haos” and “namastes” that are indeed the soul-touching, quintessential welcome that every weary traveller needs – to dive deeper beyond the surface in ensuring that each customer truly feels at home for the entire duration of their stay.
Even before they can step through your doors.
Starting from the moment they make that first click on your website.
REFERENCE
- Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2012/08/speak-to-global-customers-in-t)