Holiday Inn say national cultures -not `globalisation`- still count on the internet
The Internet was heralded as a key force in the trend towards a single global culture. But
Holiday Inn has introduced a British-English website, in addition to its American-English site -even though they both offer rooms at over 1,500 Holiday Inn hotels world-wide. Off-line marketers have always understood that to sell your product most effectively, you need to segment the market, and speak to each segment in a tailored way. Nationality is one of the most basic segmentations, says Damian Hinds, vice president eCommerce EMEA Six Continents Hotels.
Even after decades of globalisation, there are still big differences between the American and British versions of the English language. For example, everyone knows that a vacation is a holiday or that a French fry is really a chip. But how many people would know where to find their odometer or what a credenza is? Even as some differences disappear, new ones emerge. Try telling an American to text me, or asking an Englishman if he`s been carded. These are not just questions of different spellings or pronunciations, but of a wholly different vocabulary and use of language.
To illustrate this point, Holiday Inn has published an online dictionary of popular travellers` terms that differ between the UK and the US, at which provides a useful reference guide for future visitors to the US.
Differences between countries are not just a matter of language. For example, the UK site also uses a modified version of the mapping software, which makes driving directions more `Brit-friendly`, and the site has a different look and feel, more in tune with British tastes.
In addition, for American users of the UK site, there is also a short list of idiosyncratic British words and their American-English equivalents, plus some examples of Cockney Rhyming slang - that 90% of Brits don`t understand, let alone overseas visitors!
It has been proved that taking note of customer differences and expectations from country to country has a marked impact on sales. When Express by Holiday Inn launched a British version of its web site a few months ago, the Internet sales went up by 30%.
Holiday Inn`s British parent company -Six Continents Hotels- has also created `portal sites` in eight other different languages, including German, Dutch, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.
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