Food for thought: Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
According to the Office of Travel and Tourism, over 55 million international tourists visited the USA in 2009. Listed below are the top 10 countries of origin.
1 Canada 18.0 million
2 Mexico 13.2 million
3 U.K. 3.9 million
4 Japan 2.9 million
5 Germany 1.7 million
6 France 1.2 million
7 Brazil 0.9 million
8 Italy 0.8 million
9 S. Korea 0.7 million
10 Australia 0.7 million
Here’s some food for thought: foreign language tours. Of course, it helps if you speak another language fluently. But even if you don’t speak another language, you have several options for creating foreign language tours.
Option 1: Have a friend who speaks a foreign language translate and narrate your tour. This is a great low cost option, but has some drawbacks. For example, you’re limited in languages to those that your friends know and the quality of the narration might not be as engaging as you would deliver.
Option 2: Professional translation and voice over services. If you have your script all typed up and ready to record, you can get it translated and narrated by a professional voice actor. Translation services are widely available on the Internet. A search for “translation services” will give you over 5 million results. Some of the translation sites can even do the narration and deliver you the MP3 files. Alternatively, you can take your translated script to voice over sites like Voices.com and get the script narrated by professional voice actors speaking in their native language.
Option 3: Submit your script for translation and narration project to freelance work sites. At these sites, freelance talent will bid on your project. You can then accept the best candidate to do the work and know the price in advance. Here are some good choices to consider for freelance sites: oDesk.com, Guru.com, and Elance.com.
If you decide to create some foreign language tours, you might be interested in knowing the most popular destinations for international visitors. According to the Office of Travel and Tourism, the top 20 cities for overseas visitors in 2009 were:
1 New York City
2 Miami
3 Los Angeles
4 Orlando
5 San Francisco
6 Las Vegas
7 Washington, DC
8 Honolulu
9 Boston
10 Chicago
11 San Diego
12 Philadelphia
13 Atlanta
14 Houston
15 Flagstaff/Grand Canyon/Sedona
16 Tampa/St. Petersburg
17 Seattle
18 Anaheim-Santa Ana
19 Dallas-Plano-Irving
20 San Jose
source: http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/outreachpages/inbound.general_information.inbound_overview.html
