Hotel owner Adrian Loveridge gets by with a little help from his friends
Peach and Quiet Hotel is the first Bajan tourism establishment to welcome Brazilian tourists online in their native Portuguese language. Hotel owner Adrian Loveridge recently announced…
“Portuguese language translation up and running on Peach and Quiet website. Grateful thanks to Kathy at Axses Web Communications.”
The lack of Portuguese language capability at the websites of the Barbados Tourism Authority and various hotels and tourism attractions has become even more relevant since Industry Minister George Hutson announced in September 2009 that Barbados should expand its tourism and investment marketing to Latin America.
Almost six months later in February 2010, the Barbados government announced that GOL Airlines of Brazil would be making scheduled flights to Barbados. Frankly, we on the rock should be delighted to gain access to such a large and close market. Yup… we have access to a quarter of a billion people today that we didn’t have access to a couple of months ago.
So did the Barbados Tourism Authority put up a welcome page for Brazilian visitors in their native Portuguese language?
You mek sport, my friend! That would take vision, leadership and (worst of all) work! We’ve been begging BTA to put up a Portuguese welcome page since September. Adrian Loveridge and other small hotel owners have been asking the same thing of BTA for ten years. The result: NADA.
So Adrian called up his friends at Axses Web Communications and in a matter of a few days his Peach and Quiet hotel website had a quick and easy translation feature powered by Google. It’s not the elegant and preferred implementation of a parallel Peach and Quiet website translated into perfect Portuguese by a human – but it works. Most of all, it says to prospective guests from Brazil, “Peach and Quiet cares about your business.”
Once again a little guy just does it while the Barbados Tourism Authority queries their staff about whether they should schedule a meeting to discuss if they should call a meeting to discuss if it might be feasible to conduct a study to ascertain if a consultant should be hired to recommend whether a meeting should be called to hire a consultant to investigate the feasibility of translating the Barbados Tourism Authority website into other languages and what languages should be considered. Phase two would be to convene a meeting to decide if the consultant’s contract should be extended to explore the hiring of a Portuguese translator, and whether it should be put to tender.
You think we’re joking about all of that. Trust us – we’re not.
Here’s what Adrian accomplished in a couple of days with a little help from his friends at Axses Web Communications…
Barbados Free Press 
Adrian has to generate enough revenue to keep his hotel in business.
The BTA and the government owned hotels do not have to do anything and nothing is expected other than the government picking up the expenses and the losses.
Its all very very sad.
LOL @ BFP
You forgot the most important part: OUT CUT!!
Well done Sir and once again you are leading. Time has come to revamp the hotel association and all its partners from the ‘ spring ‘ on down.
What does johnny polstle mean “Out Cut!!” ???
I have to disagree with you guys on this one. There are easier ways to do things……
http://translate.google.com/#
It’s a lot simpler then paying someone to translate your web site into Portuguese, Spanish, French, German or a hundred other languages!
Most people are smart enough to use this when they have to – and for those who are not, all you have to do is put a link up to google translate on your site. Easy as pie!
Just checked out the P&Q website and it looks like they are doing exactly what I suggested. They have a link up at their site to google translate. Is that what he paid those guys to do? Anyone could have done that!
IMO…he would have been better off getting someone to redesign his site. It looks “dated” at this point.
“Anyone could have done that”
Ah… but nobody else on the whole island in the tourism business bothered to do that. Only Peach and Quiet Hotel has any kind of a welcome up for tourists from Brazil.
As we said in our article, the Google translation of Adrian’s website is not the most elegant solution, but it works. It’s not what we would expect from the BTA, but it effectively communicates a message that Brazilian guests are welcome at Peach and Quiet. Perhaps Adrian will put up a better website in the future, but then again he runs almost 100% occupancy now based upon his repeat business and new business as a result of independent ratings of Peach and Quiet at Trip Advisor.
Still, he’s put up something to welcome the Brazilians and to let them know that his hotel is thinking of them in a special way.
Contrast that with the BTA or Hilton websites.
I just added the Translator to my Front Page links
Excellent Ian!
We’re going to buy Clive a bottle of “the best” and see if we can talk him into doing it for us too. Not sure if we can because there are limitations to blogs hosted for free at WordPress.
I’d say if we could get a few more websites to do it perhaps we can shame the BTA into doing something.
But then, probably not. If they haven’t responded to six months of us shaming them, and MP’s suggesting it and 10 years of hotel owners asking for it, why should they get off their lazy asses at this point?
What I meant by that comment is that he did not have to pay anyone to do that for him. He could have easily done that himself. I hope he did not pay too much since it must have taken all of about 30 seconds to do. The way your post reads it looks like he had to hire some kind of brilliant html expert to do that for him. Meanwhile his site still looks like it was designed back in 1995. That’s what he should be focused on
Yes, every little bit helps, but to suggest that just because someone has a link to translator on their site that the tourists will come flocking is out of touch with reality. The BTA and our govt have to make some hard decisions and spend some hard money on advertising to get that to happen. It’s not going to be as easy as putting up a link.
But google, if we’ve spent gazillions in concessions and meetings to facilitate GOL’s scheduled flights from Brazil, and we’re about to spend “hard money” on advertising, don’t you think the BTA should invest a couple of thousand dollars to put up a website that folks from Brazil can read and feel welcomed and inspired to visit?
The BTA seems to get things so ass-backwards all the time we don’t know where to start. It’s sooooooo simple and soooooo basic. Why won’t they do it?
Answer: because they don’t think it’s important or they lack the management skills necessary to pull it off.
Either way the BTA shur look like a buncha goofs.
AS TO LOVERIDGE: He’s a hotel owner, not a computer coder and I doubt he’d know how to do it so he asked a friend to help him out.
He was the first hotel or tourism website in Barbados to do this. We think that is noteworthy and even moreso when the BTA and BTI haven’t bothered.
google is your friend,
I gladly accept the criticism. Our website is not as we would like it and that is being addressed but at least we are making an effort.
We are currently full at published rate at least until 10 April, so something must be right!
Sadly we do not have 130 employees spending $100 million a year like the BTA.
The First two websites that a google search shows as “belonging” to the Barbados Tourism Authority…www.barbados.org and http://www.visitbarbados.org
The first is registered and owned by Ian Clayton of AXES , the second is the OFFICIAL website of the Barbados Tourism Authority.
Neither one has a link to Google`s translate site.
Yes, as I said “every little bit helps”. I agree that more could be done with BTA sites – not just from people from Brazil, but everywhere. Especially in Europe. But with this kind of thing where do you draw the line? Should we also have links in German, Spanish, French, Italian… Etc? I don’t know the answer to that. Just asking.
As far as AL goes, I would be surprised if he does not know how to put up a simple link on a web site…..since he seems to know so much about just about everything else. :-}
I just tried Googles translation service for an apartment that I rent out..it did a fantastic job…in seconds…FREE!
Google is your Friend…….The beauty is that it takes the English page and translates all text into WHATEVER language the reader wishes..Even comments from prior guests were translated.
Thanks for sharing this useful info.
http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/TYOHITW-Hilton-Tokyo-hotel/index.do
Out of curiosity I checked the Hilton, Japan web site which is in English. It offers French and Spanish on the web site.
goole is your friend
Just a slight correction.
I know very little about ANY other subject but tourism.
@AL
Just kidding with you pal. I really do appreciate all you do to make everyone on this island use what’s between their ears!
Can you imagine if the Japanese Tourism Authority (or whatever they are called) put their tourism website up in Japanese only? LOL! 🙂
Mr Loveridge must be doing something right to have 100% Occupancy until April..They don`t even have TV or Air Conditioning at Peach and Quiet, (which is incredible in 2010.) and are still getting US$100 + per night. Perhaps he should not change (modernize) his website…It matches the place perfectly. There are people who want to feel like they are “back in time”.
Adrian, If it ain`t broke…don`t fix it!
Google Translation is helpful for the curious and confused Internet traveller but it is NOT appropriate for business or professional use! It’s a computer program that just translates individual words. As a person who reads & write several languages, trust me the results are functional but clunky and often amusing to a native language speaker. Businesses and organizations that use a computer program instead of a real live qualified translator are leaving themselves open to ridicule. Remember, you get what you pay for!
Dont agree with Canuck..”you get what you pay for”..Google Translate is FREE…you are not paying anything!
I speak spanish fluently, and find their English to Spanish translations are quite adequate..I can`t comment on other language translations. Now If Axses used Google, and then charged Peach and Quiet for the service..thats a rip off!
I WOULD ADRIAN lOVERIDGE THE OWNER OF PEACH AND QUITE, TO TAKE ALL HIS BOLDERS HE HAS ON THE BEACH AND SEND THEM SOME WHERE ELSE., WE THE PEOPLE OF INCH MARLOW, CAN NOT WALK OVER BOLDERS..
YES WE THE PEOPLE OF IN MARLOW,WANT TO SEE THOSE BOLDERS MOVE FROM IN MARLOW, BY THE OWNER OF PEACH AND QUITE, ADRIAN LOVERIDGE, THERE ARE NO PRIVATE BEACHES IN BARBADOS,, AND HE IS ON THE TOURISM BOARD,..SHAME ON YOU
We the people of IN Marlow,
I would have thought that the people of INCH Marlow would know how it was spelt.
ANYONE is welcomed to come and see the unbridled access people have across our property on the beach side.
I just wonder if these comments are from the same source that threatened repeatedly to kill me and rape my wife and that we are still waiting to the Police to investigate?
Adrian & BFP – Get a load of this, I did a check on the mirror-sites of that “evil-spammer” and they have been all deleted, except one which is in suspense or archived for Violating “Terms Of Service” … But those comments on ‘BOULDERS’ with deliberate mis-spelling have similar syntax as before, so watch out! I think elections are a lot close than we feel, and this battle is gonna be more vehement?
Margin still exists…
Thanks Ian,
The messages certainly had the same feel about them.