Hier kommen alle auf ihre Kosten. Comunicare e tradurre l'identità di un territorio nell'era del turismo globale. Nuove sfide (e opportunità) per le professioni linguistiche

Faced with the challenge of attracting and meeting the needs of modern foreign travellers, local tourism organizations require multifaceted communication skills, including relational abilities. Language experts can provide invaluable support when it comes to significantly improve the communicative appeal of tourism destinations. Moving from a brief survey of new trends in tourism (e.g. changing travel needs and habits as well as the emergence of experiential trips and innovative modes of interaction between tourists and tourist destinations), the paper addresses problematic issues of multilingual tourism marketing in Italy such as poor quality translation and ineffective communication practices. Special emphasis will be placed on two case studies which illustrate how sub-optimal quality in translation can undermine the success of otherwise cutting-edge marketing projects and demonstrate the formative value of drawing on “best practices” when writing or translating tourist texts across languages and cultures. The text analysis focuses in particular on the treatment and translation of culture-specific items. Finally the paper outlines some proposals for designing training modules aimed at developing the communication skills required in today’s international tourism marketplace.