Translating a travel website means checking the complete customer journey. A visitor who chooses French should be able to understand the offer, use the enquiry or booking form and know how the team will reply. Before adding another language, follow that journey and record where the language changes or the help runs out.

Start with a market you can serve well. Decide which holidays you will promote, who will review the translation and how customer questions will be handled. That gives the website team a clearer brief than a request to translate every page at once.

Separate language from the market you serve

A French-language page might serve travellers in several countries. Their departure airports, currencies and available products may differ. Write down the intended audience alongside the language so those choices don't get hidden in the translation work.

Google's international-site guidance distinguishes multilingual websites from websites aimed at different regions. It recommends separate URLs for language versions and appropriate language annotations. Ask your website team to document the proposed URL structure and how equivalent pages will be connected.

Give visitors a clear language choice. Google advises against automatically redirecting people based on an assumed language, which can also prevent them and search engines from reaching alternatives. For your customer test, check that someone can change language and still recognise the holiday or service they were viewing.

Review the words that affect a decision

A fluent opening paragraph won't compensate for an unclear room description. Give a reviewer who knows the language and the product the parts customers rely on: dates, occupancy, inclusions, payment information and cancellation conditions. Have them check the meaning against the source, including any distinction between a requested service and a confirmed one.

Keep a short terminology record for expressions your team uses repeatedly. A room category, meal plan or transfer type may need an explanation as well as a translated label. Record the approved wording and the source used so the next editor doesn't introduce a different meaning.

Google advises keeping a page's visible content and navigation in one language rather than translating only its surrounding menus. Audit the actual page, including error messages and buttons. If a supplier provides important details only in another language, decide how customers will receive an accurate explanation before they commit.

Follow the journey beyond the page

Test one representative holiday from its landing page to the next customer message. Include the search results, selected offer, form, confirmation and any document you send. Check the desktop journey and repeat it on a phone, where a longer label may cover a control or wrap awkwardly.

Travelgenix University has separate guidance for managing website languages and widget translations. Use the relevant instructions for your setup and check the result in each part of the journey. A setting in one component isn't evidence that every connected service uses the same language.

Include an unsuccessful action in the test, such as a required field left blank. The visitor needs to understand how to correct it. Check that an adviser receiving the enquiry can identify the requested language and knows who will respond. Explain any limits on the languages or hours in which your team can provide support.

Check language markup and accessibility

The W3C's language guidance recommends declaring a page's default language on the HTML element and marking passages in another language where needed. Ask your developer to check those declarations, alongside text direction where relevant. These are separate checks from Google's use of visible content to identify a page's language.

Use the travel enquiry accessibility guide to review the controls and reading order. Have a competent language reviewer read the content in context, including on mobile. Keep the language review and the technical review in the same task record so each issue reaches the right person.

Keep a language launch record

Copy these fields for each journey: audience and language; starting URL; offer tested; language reviewer; search and form result; error-message result; confirmation and document result; customer-support route; mobile issues; owner; retest date. Record unresolved items in ordinary language and decide which must be fixed before promotion.

Set a review trigger for later changes to prices, conditions or core product descriptions. The translated version needs an owner when the original changes. Bring one completed journey record to your travel website discussion and agree who will close each gap before that language goes live.