However, I have to assume that the owners of the web pages are in the best position to know their target audience and their needs.

http://www.pollthepeople.com/polls/38ZBqaLf/

Will be back with results!

So much common sense that anyone who books a trip on a foreign flag carrier or LCC and does not look at the carrier’s website that is intended for its own nationals is truly missing some spectacular opportunities. Once you know exactly what you want and when you want it, it is easy to replicate on the foreign site and to try all the alternatives that you tried on the site intended for US consumption along with any others that appear to be available.

An example of that hit me on the Air France French site when I needed a one-way CDG to Strasbourg. I had carefully priced it out on the online agents and the Air France US site and knew everything about it that Air France was revealing in English. But on the site intended for domestic use, I learned that there existed an internal France fare for senior citizens that was about a 40-50% discount for travel on the off-hour lights. And I learned that not because of reading French, but simply by noticing that there was a category available to enter the number of passengers that were seniors. When AF was happy to take my payment in Euros with my US addressed credit card, I was in for the deal.

I have booked LCCs in their original languages when they had better deals than were being offered in English or when they were first out of the gate and the online agents had not yet caught up to them.

I have also registered for their e-mailings and am of the opinion that it would take an idiot to get an e-mail that started out with a 20 point “PROMOZIONE” and not realize what was happening right below even if he did not exactly know where “Reggio di Calabria” could be found on a map. And when I booked in Italian on the website of the late, lamented LCC AlpiEagles, I used Babelfish or the Google language tool to help me decode their baggage limitations and other rules found in the small print.

And in this day and age, you can believe that most of the Europeans that you will meet are sufficiently competent in English to navigate, sometimes with a bit of effort, the sites which the Oban survey was presenting to them although of course they would prefer to search in their own language.

Also, the quote above that “70 percent of internet search is not in English” is a statistic particularly used in this case to mislead in order to give the impression that English is not the dominant language of the internet. Of course anybody would prefer to do a facts search in his own language and most of those who do would say that the preponderance of their searches lead to sites found only in English.

And why are we wasting our time on this “study” which probably was designed to forward an agenda dreamed up by the marketing department of some second rate travel supplier looking to get a mention in the mainstream media.

DiscoverAmerica.com has content on all 50 states, up to 59 cities, the five U.S. territories and hundreds of attractions and activities in the USA. There is a community section for travelers’ comments and booking opportunities, too.

The Travel Industry Association, who developed this website in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Commerce, plans to add other market-specific versions in the future as well, with China at the top of the list.

There is a podcast I listen to, “The World in Words,” which features a clip in its intro of a woman saying “Why, as an American, do I have to push a button to speak English?”

The answer I always want to shout to her: “because some businesses have decided that it is in their best interest to offer service in multiple languages.” For example, I deal with two banks. One has a Spanish option in its phone menu, the other has only English. I’m sure the first one has more Latino customers than the second one. I’m not offended by the language policy of either company.

I don’t think English only is discrimination. It costs extra to support multiple languages. If an airline or travel site decides it is in their best interest, they will invest in it. American Airlines did this recently by adding a Spanish version for US customers.