Localizing for Travel: Diverse Solutions for Diverse Needs

Laura Casanellas Luri

From the highly editorial to the automatically translated

Travel as a commodityLiterally at our fingertips

All the main steps related to travel can be done online from virtually any point on the planet providing there is an internet connection.

• Browsing through tourism sites to get information about travel destinations

• Booking transportation (flights, trains, cars, etc.)

• Booking accommodation (hotels, B&Bs, hostels, apartments…)

• Finding information about/booking, local amenities and activities (museums, theme parks, leisure attractions)

Benefits for the Localization industryThe move to digital platforms creates many great possibilities

The localization industry is already benefiting from the move to digital platforms

Demand for more content In more languages

There is room for different localization models within and across the Travel industry.

Translation

Full Post-Editing

Transcreation

Light Post-Editing

Raw MT

Crowdsourcing

MT + Crowd

All types, all formatsA variety of content types that require different approaches

Highly polished, dedicated sites containing inviting photographs and tantalising written content

User Generated Content

Websites with practical interfaces containing drop down menus and clickable optionsto book destination, time, day, luggage, dietary requirements…

Marketing

User Interface

Support, instructional pages

Online reviews from fellow travellers accounting their experiences in different places.

Technical Documentation

The need for SpeedThings happen very fast in the Travel industry

The lifespan of content in large Travel sites is short. E.g. “Crisis Translation” – an airport has been closed due to

adverse weather conditions. 24 hours serviceWebsite Content is constantly changing. E.g. Influx of constant new offers

published on the sites. + all related content needs to be

localized (marketing pieces, new UI options, support documentation)

Within a week the campaign might need to be dropped (globally or locally) because goals are not met

Content needs to be changed and localized again

The need for FlexibilityThe requirements are multiplying thereby expanding the skillset exponentially

Mobile set of requests that require flexible linguistic resources:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Content creation

Localization of local entities (names of places)

Skills required: research, creation of content, use of advance Search Tools

Challenge: Is the current Supply Chain willing to take on this type of jobs? Can local Language Providers recruit resources with different mind-sets and skills?

Different scenarios Many companies still have quite basic manual processes

Scenario 1

• Requirement to translate Travel deals on a daily basis

• Deals can be published in 7 different languages including English (any variation to and from)

• Internal team of translators cannot keep up with the demand

• The desire is to reduce time to market

• Work is done on a proprietary CMS, where every translation is overwritten: no leverage kept.Ideal solution: move to bilingual format, creation of TMs, implementation of Machine Translation program for all language combinations.

Different scenarios Most companies have certain levels of automation

Scenario 2

• Large Travel Site• Internal TMS • One workflow• Different scenarios:

• B to C (Business to Customers)• B to B (Business to Business)

• Challenge1: different voice depending on the content type, sometimes difficult to distinguish as there is only one workflow

• Challenge2: Some tasks require crowd, but crowd with certain knowledge of CAT Tools

• Difficult to resource

Different scenarios Full automation: Localization Maturity Model (LMM)Scenario 3

• Large Travel Site• Internal TMS • Connector between TMS and

Welocalize’s open source GlobalSight system

• Different workflows for different possible scenarios covered

• E.g. with/without client review

• Client saves 70% PM and 1,300 engineer hours per year

• Welocalize saves 35% on PM time• Focus on quality

UGC, a very lucrative type of contentLarge Travel companies have made User Generated Content the core of their business model One of the newest and most disruptive content types within

the Travel sector Format: online reviews Addressing the need of ultimate feedback: sentiment and

opinion information from other travellers In the target languages Localization solution: raw Machine Translation, MT + Light

PE, MT + crowd Volumes: hundreds of millions of words

UGC and the localization industryPre-processing steps, MT management, lighter forms of Post-EditingNormalization steps prior to Machine Translation

Authored by ordinary users: informal style, frequent spelling and grammar errors, non standard input (emoticons)

Research is focusing on normalization and pre-processing steps: the better the source, the better the MT output

Examples of normalization steps: Correct localization of proper names Inclusion of frequent misspellings Inclusion of frequent date patterns

UGCClassification of non-standard input

Short forms (nite (night), sayin (saying), gr8 (great)),

Acronyms (lol (laugh out loud), iirc (if I remember correctly)),

Typing errors/misspellings (wouls (would), rediculous

(ridiculous)),

Punctuation omissions/errors (im (I’m), dont (don’t)),

Non-dictionary slang (that was well mint (that was very good)),

Wordplay (that was soooooo great (that was so great)),

Censor avoidance (sh1t, f***),

Emoticons (:) (smileys), <3 (heart))

Foreign words used intentionally (al dente, bon voyage)

(Jiang et al, 2012) (Clark & Araki, 2011)

UGCNormalization script

Light Post-EditingComprehensible, accurate but not stylistically compelling

Situation:

High volumes & perishability; however, a mistranslated review can have negative impact on business

Extra Light PE (sanity check only). Post-editors fix:o severe misrepresentations, dropped/added negationso offensive statementso un-translated words / omissions when critical

Question to ask: Is the target language review a balanced representation of the original review?

weImpact Low (40 to 70% discounts of the new word rate)

China, an unstoppable phenomenonTravellers from China are becoming more prevalent

Potential: Population of over 1.36 billion Around 5% have passports

Hotels.com™ Chinese International Travel Monitor (CITM) 2014 Report

2012 14M tourists

2013 97M tourists

2014~<100M

2015 ?

When?

Chinese NY

Labour Day

Research through…

Travel guide books

friends (social media)

online travel sites

Where?

Hong Kong, Thailand,

Japan

US, France, UK, Italy

ConclusionsThe need to catch up

o The Travel industry is growing fast

o With progress in technology and increasing numbers of people using it, the

needs of the Travel industry are changing and evolving

o The Localization industry needs to adapt to this increase in growth and the

emergence of new tasks

o Automation is key

o Machine Translation, with or without Post-Editing, has become a must to

translate large volumes of User Generated Content

o Some countries are becoming more exposed to the Travel industry and

therefore, to the localization industry. China.

o There is a need for a flexible, multitasking, specialized translation-post-

editing force.

About Welocalize

Welocalize, Inc., founded in 1997, offers innovative translation and localization solutions helping global brands to grow and reach audiences around the world in more than 157 languages. Our solutions include global localization management, translation, supply chain management, people sourcing, language services and automation tools including MT, testing and staffing solutions and enterprise translation management technologies. With over 600 employees worldwide, Welocalize maintains offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan and China.

www.welocalize.com