Travel and hospitality is a global industry where customer experience is at the forefront of its success. With businesses operating in a wide range of countries and languages, they need to be able to communicate effectively with customers and partners from all over the world. After all, traveling knows no borders and speaks every language.

AI solutions for translation and multilingual content generation tools have become increasingly popular in the industry due to their ability to provide accurate, timely translations with minimal effort and high-cost optimizations. In this blog post, we look at real-world use cases and provide best practices for getting started.

Getting Started with AI Translation for Your Travel and Hospitality Business (and 6 Best Practices to Follow)

With strategic planning and implementation, businesses can maximize their profits while minimizing costs through the use of AI translation. Here are three best practices to keep in mind when starting out:

1. Understand Your Requirements: Before selecting an AI translation solution, it is important to understand your specific requirements. Consider factors such as the languages you need to be translated, the scope of services you would like to use (real-time translations, document translations, etc.), and any other specific features you may need. Look for solutions that will help you scale in the future since this will allow you to increase translation volumes quickly without incurring additional costs. 

2. Have Different Translation Methods Available: Depending on your unique business needs, you may want to invest in a solution that offers various translation methods. At Lilt, we offer both Instant Translation, which produces machine translations in seconds, and Verified Translation, which sends translated content to Lilt for human verification. When content quality is your priority, Verified Translation is great for content translation. When speed or rapid iteration is needed, Instant Translation is your solution.

3. Evaluate Solutions Carefully: When evaluating different AI translation solutions, it is important to consider both performance metrics and cost considerations. Pay attention to accuracy rates, latency times, scalability options, as well as any observability (i.e fraud detection) features to detect AI-generated text in data supply chains that can undermine the effectiveness of In-Context Learning. 

4. Leverage Connectors for Scalability: Using Connectors or integrations is a great way to add a new AI tool into your workflow at an affordable price. By automatically integrating into existing systems, Connectors not only reduce friction that is typically associated with adding a new tool, but also eliminate extra steps, and increase translation efficiency.

5. Create Content with Generative AI: In addition to an AI translation solution, you may also benefit from pairing it with a generative AI tool to help you create content from scratch. This technology allows companies to go to market faster with content that resonates with their target audiences.

Lilt offers an application called Create that enables regional teams to quickly and directly create brand-aligned, enterprise-grade content in any language. The addition of this app makes the Lilt Contextual AI Platform the first and only existing platform to offer both multilingual content translation and creation. If you’re using a similar generative AI tool, make sure you’re following best practices when prompting LLMs to create content. 

6. Train Employees & Monitor Performance: Implementing AI translation tools enables travel businesses to equip their employees with the ability to communicate in multiple languages without the need to hire specialized staff. 

Once an AI translation solution has been selected and integrated into existing systems or workflows, it is important to ensure that employees understand how to use it correctly. Training should include how to access the tool itself as well as how to interpret results from its usage. It is also important to monitor performance over time in order to identify areas where training or adjustments may be needed in order for optimal performance of the solution.

Conclusion

Today, many teams and leaders are pressured to optimize their translation costs. The good news? By taking these steps to implement a cost-effective AI strategy, businesses can unlock new opportunities by optimizing profits and reducing costs while delivering quality services that modern travelers expect from any business operating in travel and hospitality.