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Your app is too good to stay in the shadows

Learn how to spotlight your tourism app around the world

We are all crazy about apps. It’s a fact. Aren’t they so great and useful? And, of course, they are always there to help us when we need them the most.

Today, Crystal Robinson from Monscierge, reveals how she translated her Connect app into 11 languages using ICanLocalize’s professional software localization service.

Impressed? Check out this case study and dare to do the same with your own app!

Welcome to the second article in our new ICanLocalize Case Study Series.

About the project

Connect is an amazing app which connects hotel guests and potential hotel guests with a whole network of hotels around the word.Users can access information provided directly by hotels and resorts about on-property amenities and events, recommendations for local food and entertainment, and more.
And, and this were not enough, guests can actually communicate with the hotel staff and make their own personal requests, directly from the app!

Connect app

Connect on iPhone

Connect is originally written in English but now it’s available in 11 languages: French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Thai.

Main reasons to get the app translated

  • To target tourists from all over the world regardless of language barriers.
  • To target hotel owners and let them know they don’t need to hire a polyglot staff.
  • To make communication between customer and staff easier and smoother in their own language.
  • To help guests feel more comfortable in a foreign country whose language they don’t speak.

About the author

Crystal Robinson

Crystal Robinson is the Director of Marketing and Media at Monscierge. This 4 year old company, started as a hospitality technology company. Their mission is to connect hotels and brands the world over and be present during every moment of a guest’s journey. They aim to develop tools that connect hotels with guests, guests with staff, and give guests a simple way to get real updated information.

“With many clients operating at a global scale, we realized the importance of having multilingual functionality available in our product for the travel sector. Employing a truly diverse speaking staff for international travelers is a challenge hospitality has yet to find a solution for.”

Crystal Robinson, Monscierge Marketing and Media Director

How did Crystal find out about ICanLocalize?

Crystal is very enthusiastic and tells us:

“James Texter, lead developer for Monscierge, recommend the marketing team utilize ICanLocalize’s services. We were aware he had used a service for development purposes and was pleased with the results, and I wanted to stay with a well applied, consistent process for going multilingual with our products.”

We went directly to the source, James, and asked him why he recommended ICanLocalize:

“We had used another translation service in the past, however I was not happy with the workflow. This led me to look on Apple’s website for other resources, which is where I found ICL. After investigating, I picked ICL because of the high reviews I read, and the fact they could work with native formats. This made the workflow much simpler, since I didn’t have to massage data in and out of the system. The fact they offered other services, such as app store descriptions, was icing on the cake. It’s really nice having a single resource to go to”

James Texter, Monscierge Chief Technical Officer

11 languages! That sounds like a tough challenge

App interface

You might think that translating an app into 11 languages must be demanding and time consuming; well that’s a myth. The only thing you need is conviction and willingness to believe your app has the potential to go multilingual.

For Crystal and Monscierge, the biggest concern and principal objective is to enable guests, staff, and hotel owners to communicate, regardless of nationality. That’s what good hospitality is all about. How can a foreigner feel welcome and cared about if they cannot call room service and order a regular menu? Remember, we are not all polyglots.

Apart from that, isn’t it nice to browse the App Store and see our app available in several languages? It definitely gives your app a plus. Users appreciate that you care about communication and overcoming language barriers.

“We had a need to find a translation service after taking on a new client with locations in over 30 countries – although at the end of the day for me, going multilingual with our app is an imperative marketing strategy as much as anything.  We try to always think of our hospitality and travel products from a user perspective – to build products that make sense and that we would want to use ourselves.”

Crystal’s selection of 11 languages in ICanLocalize at a very convenient rate.

Creating your Software project was never so easy

Creating Software Project

Believe it or not, five minutes is all you need to create your Software Project. After you create your ICanLocalize account, you just need to click ‘Start a new project’ and select iPhone, Android, PO/POT and other resource files.

“The process is well done, and has great account management available to the client when requested. It was user friendly – easy to log-in and ask questions with a quick turn-around response. I think ICanLocalize is an industry leader with customer account management practices.”

Uploading your resource file

Uploading resources

Whether or not you are a client, you can automatically get a word count and a quote for the translating your app. You just need to upload your localizable strings file into ICanLocalize’s state-of-the-art system with more than 10 available formats and you’re done.

Getting a quote

Connect’s word count

After Crystal uploaded her files, she was clearly able to see her project’s word count.

Assigning a translator from ICanLocalize

Selecting the right translator for your app is an easy task and you have plenty of options to choose from. ICanLocalize only works with human professional translators all translating into their native language and it offers a wide variety of selection criteria. Each time you click on a translator’s name, you will be able to see their:

  • Field of expertise
  • Level of expertise
  • Star rating
  • Recommendations
  • Profile message
  • Translation tools

Chat with your translators

Communication with translators starts from the very beginning when you decide to create a project.

Crystal pointed out she didn’t need to communicate with translators on a regular basis since she knew she was working with professionals:

“In the initial stages they asked me some general information questions like what are you gonna be using the translations for – which I thought was great because they kinda know how they are writing, so that tells me that you guys are thinking about conversational or formal style and I thought: Ok, these people must really know what they are doing because they asked me specifically so that they can write accordingly for this, so I think that’s a really telling question that made me trust your service more”

What’s next?

Crystal’s translated resource files into 11 languages.

Stop worrying! It’s time for you to step back and leave this to the professionals. Crystal’s translations were done in about 4 to 5 days and this is what they looked like:

She just had to download the translated files in the same format and integrate them into her app. This is how it looks now into Spanish:

Connect localized into Spanish

Advantages of using ICanLocalize’s app translation service

  • Quality translations
  • Simple integration of strings into app
  • Turnaround in the same format
  • Time saving translation process
  • Friendly user interface
  • Fluent communication with translators
  • Fixed rates
  • Excellent client support

What she liked the most about using ICanLocalize

Crystal highlighted the process as being simple and fast. She also commented on the important role client support played in it.

“The process you have set up is ideal, I like the fact you are thinking ahead and asking the user how we will be applying the translation. Whenever I emailed ICanLocalize, the replies were delivered very timely.”

Would Crystal recommend ICanLocalize to other users?

In Crystal’s words:

“For anyone considering taking their mobile app to a mass level of user consumption – you can’t ignore the need to offer your product in multiple languages. ICanLocalize specifically caters to mobile app developers that understand this need, and they make it easy and fast to achieve industry penetration in global markets.”

Thinking about having your tourism app translated?

Feel free to add your comments, suggestions or inquiries about app localization.

ICanLocalize is a leading translation service provider that works with the best mother-tongue professional translators, translating into more than 45 languages. We are the experts in mobile apps localization (including iPhone and Android localization), website localization, and software localization. Find out more about our great rates and quality of work here: (http://www.icanlocalize.com). It is now available in Russian. You are welcome to contact us on hello@onthegosystems.com or on Skype (icanlocalize).