The Necessity of Localization in Airport Environments
People-friendly airports are a significant indicator of every successful nation. However, several factors make up for an empathetic airport. It isn’t merely about quick services and prompt assistance or top-class amenities. Airports are places that serve people from various nationalities and cultural and linguistic backgrounds. That makes localization a vital aspect of airport infrastructure. Let’s uncover some crucial factors signifying the necessity of localization in airport environments.
The Importance of Localization in Airport Environment
Here’s more to the significance of localization in airport environments.
1. Signage and Information
Airports have numerous signages and information boards located at various places. These help travelers understand directions and know about the various amenities available in the airport premises. Localizing them helps travelers comprehend the signs and information displays better. For example, Exit in Hindi is known as निकास. Displaying boards with Hindi translations for English words can help Hindi-speakers, not as familiar with English, understand the information better. It would help streamline movement and reduce confusion.
2. Live Updates
Airports continuously relay information about flight delays, arrivals, departures, technical issues, onboarding, check-in, etc. Localizing them can provide real-time updates in multiple languages, ensuring passengers receive updates about gate changes, delays, and other information promptly and in a language they understand. Providing live updates in the local language helps enhance passenger service and contribute to better airport experiences.
3. Cultural Sensitivity
Localization considers cultural sensitivities and nuances to ensure linguistic accuracy and avoid misunderstandings. These factors particularly come into play while making announcements. Although many airports are silent ones these days, urgent announcements are made orally. Making them in different languages and accurately refer to respecting regional values and enhancing communication.
4. Serving Passengers with Special Needs
Airports also serve people with special needs. These people may need assistance across various stages of their interaction with the airport, and its staff. Localization ensures information and services are accessible to passengers with special needs. It also includes people requiring language assistance or other help.
5. Targeted Marketing and Advertising
In addition to the above, localization enables targeted marketing across restaurants, duty-free shops, retail shops, cafes, etc. It helps enhance revenue opportunities by catering to the linguistic needs of a larger audience. On the other hand, advertisements in various languages can attract more attention and cater to the specific preferences of a diverse and global passenger base.
6. Improved Cultural Representation
Airports are often the first point of interaction, representing a country’s friendly and empathetic approach of a particular country. As stated earlier, localization forms an integral aspect of it. Localizing through professional localization experts helps the airport reflect the cultural diversity of the region, welcoming approach and echoes its efforts in making passengers feel comfortable.
7. Compliance
Compliance is another dimension concerning the importance of localization in an airport environment. Localizing instructions, directions, announcements, etc., in diverse languages helps comply with global regulations and standards, particularly where providing insights into multiple languages is a mandate.
Conclusion
The necessity of localization in airport environments goes beyond enhancing passenger service. It transcends to areas like better traveler experiences and empathy, fundamentally signifying a country’s efforts in caring for travelers through language. However, airport localization isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. It is as critical as localizing anything else like websites, apps, etc.
Accordingly, airport localization demands a high level of accuracy and understanding multiple languages and cultures. This is where Filose comes into play. Our expertise in over 200 languages, as many cultures and over a decade of experience localizing for organizations from various business domains, reflects our credibility and trustworthiness in the localization business. Please email us at sales@filose.com to learn more about our localization support.
Ref. No – FLB11241065