Sixty-five percent of travel sites in France contain blunders or translation errors according to the latest study by TextMaster; professional translation services as well as writing and editing online content is estimated at over a 120 million euro loss each year.
“Our top stay,” “Challenger Destination,” “Acceptable Use Policy,” “Speedy Rental,” “Some Useful Informations,” and “Well-Being Expect For You” are all expressions found on the pages of travel sites.
The E-Tourism sector is worth €18.5 Billion in France. With a conversion rate that is increased to 70% when a site is completely multilingual, it is estimated the industry loses more than €120 million annually because of bad translations or flagrant errors: “Multilingualism is fundamental for a tourism site that aims, in essence, to reach for an international audience. But sometimes it’s the best translations that are the enemy, and it’s better to translate a site poorly into 40 languages than excellently into 5-10 languages,“ says Thibault Lougnon TextMaster CEO. The study also reveals that 58% of these sites have non-translated texts, i.e. phrases in French in the English version and English expressions in the French version. Finally, 33% of French travel sites have no English translation at all.
The translation industry has been suffering increasing demands for cost-down but higher productivity for decades. Back in the days when I was a freelancer, translators could make a good living as competition was low. Internet and new technolologes changed all of that. Suddenly, hundreds if not thousands of linguists and translation agencies were available across the world - and there was money to be made as an online service. Leaving aside the distinction between translation company and translation agency, many translation companies may use underqualified personnel.
The last times I was proposed a project in this field, the rate was $5 per page. I am not surprised the quality is so poor. They might have high returns, but when it deals with translation they are not ready to pay, so they can't get professional translators.
It does not matter how good the technology is, you still need the brain of a good translator to produce a good translation.