Based in the quiet of Tasmania, Roaring ’40s Wilderness Tours is a company that provides kayaking and hiking tours for international tourists in Southwest Tasmania. “Tasmania is a remote place”, one of the company’s founders, Kim Brodlieb says, “its scenery is so beautiful. The Southwest wilderness of Tasmania is one of the most precious places on the planet. It’s even been inscribed on the World Heritage List for its outstanding natural and cultural values. We want to share this beautiful place with our international visitors and offer them with an unforgettable journey in Australia”.

“We have different tours to suit different tourists’ needs. For example, our 3-day exploration tour is more suitable for people who are not very familiar with paddling or wilderness camping while our 7-day expedition tour is for more experienced persons with kayaking and camping. However, no matter which tour you join, you will still be able to feel and experience the beauty of Tasmania,” added Ms Bordlieb.

With their nine years of experience in the area, Roaring ’40s understands their markets pretty well. Kim Brodlieb knew that their customers came mainly from Japan, Germany and France, so she and her business partner, Ian Balmer, decided to translate their newly established website into the Japanese, French and German.

“When we decided to translate our newly developed website”, Mr. Balmer explained, “we searched through the web and found the background and experience of Multicultural Marketing and Management (MMM) very interesting, so we decided to call them. As we briefed them over the phone about what we wanted to do, they provided very informative and helpful suggestions about translating our website. Therefore, we decided to commission them to work on our website translation project”.

MMM knew there were special challenges in this project beyond the task of translation. First, in order to make the translation understandable to potential tourists from Japan, Germany and France, the translators had to be aware of the tone and wording used so the descriptions of exotic Tasmania wouldn’t sound odd to readers who might not have much knowledge about Australia.

Second, when translating a document that uses terms related to currency or measurement, MMM is careful to be sure the terms match up with those used in another culture. A good example occurred when one of the translators came across a passage in the Roaring ’40s website about recent winds in Tasmania that were “up to 45 knots”. Our German translator pointed out that, although we use “knots” for wind speed in Australia, it is not commonly used in Germany. She suggested a change to kilometres per hour for the German audience.

Our translators were very cautious in checking every detail. When she came across a mention in the website of a book by “Denny King”, our French translator followed the link in the website and found that “Denny” should be spelled “Deny”. Following her finding, the English version of the website and other translated documents in other languages were also corrected to spell the author’s name correctly. Clearly, our translators are highly dedicated and work on every detail!

 The Roaring ’40s translated websites are now up and running and we hope this will bring many more international customers to Roaring ’40s in the future! If you are interested, go to the following website and search for their exciting trips for your next adventure!

http://roaring40skayaking.com.au/en/index.html

Are your AV materials “Going Global” too?

With globalisation a world trend, companies that intend to produce audio visual (AV) materials for use in presenting their profiles to potential customers may need to think about how these materials can appeal to their international customers as well.

If your company already has some AV materials in English, one option is that you can covert them into other languages by adding in subtitles or using voice over.* However, before you do so, you should ask yourself the following questions:

Are the content of the AV materials appropriate for another culture?

Are there any technical terms in the materials that may not be translated properly into other languages?

If your company doesn’t have any AV materials and would like to produce a DVD or video for your international customers, there are other questions to consider:

How can the AV materials appeal to all the target markets of our company, assuming we want to develop something for various countries?

Do we have the budget to develop two sets of AV materials, one for Asian/Eastern markets and one for European/Western markets, or do we have to develop one for all?

The following is a step-by-step guide for producing AV materials:  

Steps	What to consider	How to do it
Content development	Develop content that is culturally appropriate	- Use a copywriter who has a cultural background or - Do community testing about the content to see if it’s appropriate.
Filming/Editing	- Do you have staff who can speak the language to deal with shooting and editing procedures? - If not, who will oversee filming and editing procedures? - Will the filming/editing company you use have language capabilities and facilities? - Will you produce the AV materials in languages other than English?	- Using the internet or recommendations from others, find film/editing companies that have the language capabilities you need. - If you want to produce the AV materials in more than one language, find “talent” who can speak the language properly. - If you want to produce the materials in English and translate into other languages, find NAATI-accredited (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters) translators and voice-over artists who can do speak the other languages without accents. - You may also need to find a filming/editing company  capable of doing subtitles in the DVD for your distribution. - Check the subtitles/voice over carefully to see if the translation matches with the English version and the visual materials.
Distribution	- Do you want to put the AV materials on your website? - Do you want to keep them in DVD format?	- You may need to transform the DVD materials into a format that is appropriate for webcasting. - If you want to keep them in DVD format, you may need to ask the editing company to make a few more copies for your records.