Attract & Get Reservations from Non-English Speaking Guests
October 22, 2010
Confused? Many visitors to your hotel website feel the same way when they try to make a reservation at your hotel.
We live in a world where the internet has broken barriers like geographic boundaries and time. Locating a hotel across the globe is no longer a complicated process, an individual planning an international vacation, simply goes online, opens up a browser and searches for a hotel based on his requirements. This ease and convenience of searching and booking, often makes us forget that English while broadly spoken, is unknown to many. There are millions who do not speak a word of English or whose grasp over English is shaky at the best. These millions account for a significant percentage of the world’s population. To target and capture this non-English speaking audience effectively, to stop losing sales due to language barriers and currency conversion issues, you need to tweak your hotel website especially your online reservation facility to make it non-English speaker friendly.
This means adding a multi-lingual feature to your website. Even if you cannot afford the expense of hiring multiple translators to convert the content on your website to 8 or 9 different languages, you can choose an online reservation solution provider that offers you a multi-lingual reservation engine. Many visitors abandon the reservation process mid-way because they are unsure if they are booking the right room and for what price. You can ease these doubts with a multi-lingual online reservation facility. This multi-lingual feature ensure that the guest knows what type of room he is booking, for what price and reduces the number of mid process abandoned reservations because of language barriers and guest confusion.
Another essential feature when trying to entice an international audience is ‘multi-currency’. An American most probably will not be aware of the conversion rate of dollars to rupees. Similarly, an Indian most probably will not be aware of the conversion rate of rupees to dollars. This lack of knowledge can prove to a problem when a person is trying to make a reservation. Can you imagine the horror, when you think you have reserved a hotel room for Rs. 1000 only to realize Rs. 44409 has been debited from your account? By selecting an online reservation solution provider that has a Multi-Currency feature, you can display and accept payments from guests in their local currency, thus preventing any misunderstandings and abrupt cancellations.
If you are a ResAvenue affiliated hotel, you have nothing to worry about. The ResAvenue solution has multi-lingual and multi-currency capabilities that will allow your customers to reserve rooms in their local language and pay in their local currency. You can display your reservation pages in 9 major international languages - English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Mandarin and Japanese. ResAvenue offers you the facility to transact in 20 different currencies such as USD, GBP, Euro, SGD, INR, MYR, OMR, AED, CAD, CHF, HKD, AUD, CZK, DKK, HUF, JPY, NOR, NZD, SEK and BHD.
In short, don’t let language and currency become profit blocker. Choose a solution like ResAvenue that that allows your guests to reserve rooms in their local language and pay in their local currency.
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