Corrib Village

Corrib Village

Corrib Village Bed & Breakfast has launched its brand internationally, with translation of its website into French, German, Spanish and Italian. For the first time, non-English speaking visitors to the site can comfortably interact online in a language of their choice and discover all that Corrib Village and the surrounding area has to offer.

Download a PDF version of this case study

The Challenge

The Corrib Village is a well-established Bed &Breakfast just outside Galway city, Ireland. Over 50 per cent of its existing business comes from connections with local universities, directly servicing a thriving conference and language-school business.

The Corrib Village was looking to increase its visitors from overseas markets - mainly France, Germany, Spain and Italy – as well as USA and UK. Recognising the young profile of visitors to the Corrib Village and considering their online purchasing behaviour, management could see the potential of using the internet as a real competitive tool. Re-engineering the Corrib Village website towards this target demographic was considered core to increasing business growth, particularly from non-English-speaking markets.

Máire Ni Ghionnáin, operations manager of the Corrib Village explains: “We knew that overseas visitors from continental Europe were not content to book online through English language websites. Whilst many of our European visitors, especially from Germany and France have excellent English-speaking abilities, we recognised that booking online with a credit card, in a non-native language was not something that appealed to most people.”

Unlike 88 per cent of accommodation service providers in Ireland*, who do not offer multilingual online bookings, the Corrib Village spotted an opportunity to stand out from the crowd and build real competitive advantage by communicating with its visitors in their own native language.

The Solution

The Corrib Village decided to translate its website into the top four European languages in terms of visitor popularity, as ranked by Tourism Ireland. Máire explains why she chose Cipherion for the project: “Our booking engine provider had previously worked with Cipherion and they came highly recommended. We decided that we did not have to look elsewhere.”

Cipherion’s strong track record of working with other service providers in the tourism sector played a key role in helping Corrib Village with website structure, selecting suitable content, delivering translation quality and minimising cost.

Delivering More than Just Translation

“Cipherion gave me a huge amount of advice on how to approach the project,” comments Máire. “For example, based on their experience, they were able to guide us on which sections of the website should be translated and which should not. Cipherion were able to advise me on what worked well on other translated sites.”

Cipherion’s project management skills also ensured that the project was completed to budget and within prompt timescales. Máire continues: “I liked Cipherion’s ability to get on with the work, the fact that it was so seamless. The whole project didn’t take up nearly as much of my time as I expected. It allowed me to stay focused on our core business.”

The Results

In relation to translation quality, Máire has had some great feedback on the translated site from visitors and other accommodation providers in the sector. “Cipherion really lived up to their reputation. On translation quality, they handled the nuances of the languages very well and at all times, they were very mindful of budget limitations for the project.”

“Our experience with them has been really positive and they demonstrated a real knowledge and understanding of our business, which has helped make this project all the more successful for us.”

According to Mark Rodgers, CEO of Cipherion, a window of opportunity exists for forward-thinking accommodation providers to grow their business through multilingual online engagement with their target audience. “With just 18 per cent of providers translating their websites into other languages and Failte Ireland driving overseas visitors through advertising and social media campaigns, we believe translation can provide a real competitive advantage for those willing to take the leap,” he says.

The Languages 

French, German, Spanish, Italian