For hoteliers with a worldwide footprint of properties, localisation is becoming a top concern as they think about the ways to maximise revenue with a global customer base.
By Laura Lopez
Localisation with your hotel’s content plays a key role in building trust with your audience. The challenge that exists for hotel marketers is how to expand upon their marketing efforts by cohesively incorporating localisation into their content. For hotel marketers that want to take the localisation approach starting today, we’ve highlighted three simple ways to get started.
1. Localise your existing content for prioritised audiences
In its most simple form, translating content takes words from one language into another. What it leaves out are the nuances of the language like sayings and idioms so while it could make sense in the source language, it may not in the target language. Localisation, as Sajan describes it in three words is “to make it local”. Hotel marketers today are exploring how to better resonate with a global audience through localisation, starting with their website. But an added challenge is figuring out which audience to localise for.
One way to prioritise which audience and language you should consider localising for, take a look at your website’s analytics and see where traffic to your site funnels from. The traffic analytics can uncover the most popular national top-level domains and languages of those that visit your site. Is a majority of your traffic generated from a .de domain? Employing the help of a native German speaker who can address slang, cultural references, and vocabulary would be a great place to start. Your analytics can also shine a light on where this audience is clicking on the most often which can help you to prioritise what to feature more prominently on your site over other amenities.
2. Create content geared towards local experiences
Take your prospective hotel customers through a journey via storytelling. Customers want to experience what locals do so creating content that features local events, the surrounding areas, or even local vendors is a quick way to immerse customers in this journey. The Ace Hotel Panama has its own microsite that features an image gallery (for when words just don’t do the city justice) and a concierge you can reach out to prior to your trip for personalised recommendations on local excursions.
On a similar note, visual content is just as, if not more, high-impact as localised written content. According to Google, 66% of travelers watch content related to travel before considering booking a trip. Best of all there’s no shortage of what you can feature via video: points of interest near your property, music venues, annual events, food and beverage – the list is endless! As an added bonus: if your property leverages paid advertising as part of your hotel marketing mix, studies show that YouTube ads are some of the highest converting types of content when pushing prospective customers to eventually book at your property.
3. Extend localisation to your social media presence
While Facebook and Instagram may reign as the top social media outlets in the United States, you’d be remiss by ignoring what other countries favor as their preferred social networks. For example, in China, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are blocked in most areas so QZone tops the list of the most used social network. In Russia, VKontakte outranks social networks that typically rank #1 elsewhere. Figure out which network could have the most impact (depending on your target audience) and create content for that outlet.
Take social media localisation to the next level through local influencers. Your prospective customers want to get a local’s experience when they visit your property and city and social content serves as a way to promote that. What’s more is that influencers have proven to have a positive impact on bookings. Give lifestyle influencers a platform to show off their favorite local hotspots, neighborhoods, and cuisine. These influencers will know how best to feature the city’s points of interest and tackle linguistic nuances (like dialects or slang).
From Hotel Speak
By Laura Lopez
Localisation with your hotel’s content plays a key role in building trust with your audience. The challenge that exists for hotel marketers is how to expand upon their marketing efforts by cohesively incorporating localisation into their content. For hotel marketers that want to take the localisation approach starting today, we’ve highlighted three simple ways to get started.
1. Localise your existing content for prioritised audiences
In its most simple form, translating content takes words from one language into another. What it leaves out are the nuances of the language like sayings and idioms so while it could make sense in the source language, it may not in the target language. Localisation, as Sajan describes it in three words is “to make it local”. Hotel marketers today are exploring how to better resonate with a global audience through localisation, starting with their website. But an added challenge is figuring out which audience to localise for.
One way to prioritise which audience and language you should consider localising for, take a look at your website’s analytics and see where traffic to your site funnels from. The traffic analytics can uncover the most popular national top-level domains and languages of those that visit your site. Is a majority of your traffic generated from a .de domain? Employing the help of a native German speaker who can address slang, cultural references, and vocabulary would be a great place to start. Your analytics can also shine a light on where this audience is clicking on the most often which can help you to prioritise what to feature more prominently on your site over other amenities.
2. Create content geared towards local experiences
Take your prospective hotel customers through a journey via storytelling. Customers want to experience what locals do so creating content that features local events, the surrounding areas, or even local vendors is a quick way to immerse customers in this journey. The Ace Hotel Panama has its own microsite that features an image gallery (for when words just don’t do the city justice) and a concierge you can reach out to prior to your trip for personalised recommendations on local excursions.
On a similar note, visual content is just as, if not more, high-impact as localised written content. According to Google, 66% of travelers watch content related to travel before considering booking a trip. Best of all there’s no shortage of what you can feature via video: points of interest near your property, music venues, annual events, food and beverage – the list is endless! As an added bonus: if your property leverages paid advertising as part of your hotel marketing mix, studies show that YouTube ads are some of the highest converting types of content when pushing prospective customers to eventually book at your property.
3. Extend localisation to your social media presence
While Facebook and Instagram may reign as the top social media outlets in the United States, you’d be remiss by ignoring what other countries favor as their preferred social networks. For example, in China, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are blocked in most areas so QZone tops the list of the most used social network. In Russia, VKontakte outranks social networks that typically rank #1 elsewhere. Figure out which network could have the most impact (depending on your target audience) and create content for that outlet.
Take social media localisation to the next level through local influencers. Your prospective customers want to get a local’s experience when they visit your property and city and social content serves as a way to promote that. What’s more is that influencers have proven to have a positive impact on bookings. Give lifestyle influencers a platform to show off their favorite local hotspots, neighborhoods, and cuisine. These influencers will know how best to feature the city’s points of interest and tackle linguistic nuances (like dialects or slang).
From Hotel Speak