“At ZSL London Zoo we use Web-Translations to communicate key messages to our visitors from across the world.
The key pages we selected were translated quickly and accurately and have been a huge benefit.
Key pages such as how to find us, opening times and prices were translated into five key languages based on our visitors countries.
We have used Web-Translations for a number of years and find them helpful and efficient.”

Daniel Sprawson – Digital Communications Manager – ZSL London Zoo

“The work was completed extremely quickly, and the customer service I received from the team was excellent. Our website is now multilingual, which has greatly assisted in our on-going campaign to attract more overseas visitors to the BrookLodge and I intend to add more languages to expand on this success. I would definitely recommend to all hotels based in the UK and Ireland that they localise their websites to ensure that they have the best possible chance in a highly competitive market.”

Eoin Doyle, Director – The BrookLodge & Wells Spa

Get Fit for London 2012 with the recently launched Olympic Gold Website Package by Web-Translations.

The 2012 London Olympics represents a great sales opportunity. As mentioned in the Getting Fit for the Olympics blog post published last week not everyone is capitalising on this sales opportunity. Do you want to go for Gold in the 2012 London Olympics?

Last year the largest ever campaign by a national tourist board was launched by VisitBritain; the £100 million GREAT Britain You’re Invited campaign. Primarily fronted by five major global celebrities who agreed to film TV ads and help promote Britain overseas.

As VisitBritain’s Mark Di-Toro says, “Now is the time to wave the British flag”. Thanks to the GREAT campaign a global audience of billions will have their eyes firmly set on Britain like never before. Will you be profiting from this interest?

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Taking a bite from the Turkish delight will reap sweet rewards for online retailers

Turkish e-commerce transactions reached an impressive $12.3 billion in 2011, representing an increase of 57% on the previous year according to the Interbank Card Center. Combine this upsurge with the 12% per year e-commerce growth Forrester Research Inc (FORR) predicts for European growth over the next 5 years, and it becomes obvious that it’s time to pay attention to Turkey.

Impressive statistics but what’s going on?

Half the population of Turkey is under 30 years old. This young society has been quick to adopt technological innovations and they now spend more time online per week than the worldwide average. This tendency translates into a high responsiveness to social media – 89% of Turkish Internet users are on Facebook and they are the 11th most active country on Twitter.

95% of the Turkish population are expected to have a mobile phone in 2013, with global corporations such as Telecom Italia having already entered Turkey to take advantage of this.

Furthermore Turkey has a credit driven economy, with a 62% credit card penetration among consumers. All of this has led to a positive environment for the development of Turkish e-commerce.

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For hotel and tourism businesses, the 2012 Olympics represent a great sales opportunity. Visitors from all over the world will need places to stay, and things to do when they’re not busy at the sporting events.

In last place…

However, with 87% of hospitality businesses saying they have not taken any steps to prepare their business, and a further 63% claiming they do not intend to take any steps nearer the time, are we really ready for the onslaught? Why are businesses not seizing this opportunity to maximise their slice of the action? Why sit back and wait to see what happens, when this could be the opportunity of a lifetime?

As Visit London’s chief executive, Sally Chatterjee, says: “London is the world’s most visited destination by foreign travellers, and one of the most accessible cities in the world.”

It’s estimated that 350,000 foreign visitors will come to London each day during 2012, with around 5.5 million “day visitors” in total between the end of July and mid-August.

If these predicted visitor numbers prove to be accurate, then the UK’s tourism and hospitality sector is woefully unprepared for the influx of foreign tourists who will arrive this year.

Emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil have been identified as key targets, and have therefore been the focus of the international Olympic marketing campaign.

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E-commerce is booming in Brazil. Supported by a growing middle class, Brazil’s e-commerce total revenue for 2011 was over $11 billion; that’s an increase of 26% compared to 2010 ($8.4 bn). In total, 32 million consumers in Brazil bought at least once via the web in 2011, and the eCommerce market is estimated to be worth around $12.7 billion this year.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2012/03/23/brazils-e-commerce-is-booming-record-breaking-figures-in-2011-growth-of-26-earnings-of-11-bi/

So what do Brazilians buy online? The most popular categories reflect the needs of Brazil’s new middle class:

• Home appliances (13%)
• IT (12%)
• Health/beauty/drugs (11%)
• Books and magazine subscriptions (8%)
• Electronics (6%)

LiveTranslation is pleased to announce its new Refer a Friend feature.

Customers and registered translators are now able to recommend the site to family, friends and colleagues.

Each new customer that registers after receiving a referral will receive 25 words of free credit to test our translation services, and the registered customer that referred them will receive 10 words free credit for their successful registration.

Current users are requesting translations for a variety of texts: emails, love letters, notices about foreign property, business correspondence, customer service enquiries, website pages, marketing promotions, recipes, reports, apartments to let, product information, sayings/phrases, and even a marriage proposal!

“I was given a recommendation to use Live Translation following the advice of friends who had used various other online translation sites. Getting a price for my translation was quick and easy, and it was competitive. This service helped me add another language to a website created by my company, so I would recommend Live Translation to others.”
Matthieu – La Valette du Var, France

Simply sign up here if you’re a potential customer, or here if you’re a translator, then use this page http://w-t.cm/friend to let your friends know!

For further information or support, give us a call on +44 (0) 113 8150460 or email info[at]livetranslation[dot]com.

“We use Web-Translations for all our translation projects, and get excellent service. The nature of many of our texts is very technical, but Web-Translations is more than capable of providing translations that are up to our high standard. We review these internally, and therefore know that the quality of technical translation is very good.

Web-Translations is prompt and reliable, which means that we at Outokumpu can direct our energies elsewhere, knowing our translation projects are in good hands.

I also find the pricing very competitive for the level of service we require and receive.”

Nora Berg, Communications Officer – External Communications – Outokumpu Oyj

WordPress (WP) has evolved a long way from the journalist-loving blogging platform it once was to becoming a powerful CMS of choice for many SME’s. What it lacks in out-of-the-box functionality is compensated for with the vast selection of user-contributed plugins, which evolve practically at the pace of the web itself.

Matt Mullenweg (all hail) & the team beautifully balance the division between core functionality and community contributed functional extension, making it elegantly simple to learn. Making a platform so usable means that marketers can use it in as much anger as the journo’ types.

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Web-Translations will once again be exhibiting at this year’s Internet Retailing Expo (IRX) at the Birmingham NEC next week, on 21st & 22nd March.

Now in its second year, IRX brings together leading marketing, software and service providers to help multichannel online retailers grow and succeed.

IRX is designed to show etailers the next steps in building their business now that the web has matured, and includes a jam-packed workshop and multiple-track conference programme. With around 5,000 visitors expected over the two-day event, it will no doubt be a great source of new opportunities for exhibitors and delegates alike.
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