Arts and culture attracts visitors from around the world. Making websites available in multiple languages isn't just about accessibility – it's about extending a warm welcome to everyone who wants to experience the diverse offering of culture in our world.
Whether you're a museum in a tourist hotspot, a cultural centre in a multilingual community, or a theatre with international ambitions, thoughtful language planning can dramatically expand your audience reach while enhancing the visitor experience.
So let's learn how to develop and execute an effective multilingual strategy that honours both your content and your diverse patrons.
Planning your multilingual strategy
Before diving into translation, it's essential to develop a clear strategy based on your organisation's specific needs and resources.
1. Assess your needs
Begin by gathering data to understand which languages would benefit your audience most:
- Review your visitor demographics: Check box office data, membership information, and visitor surveys to identify the primary languages spoken by your current audience.
- Analyse website analytics for language preferences: Tools like Google Analytics can reveal the language settings and geographic locations of your website visitors.
- Consider your local community's languages: Even if international visitors aren't a primary audience, supporting languages spoken in your local community demonstrates inclusivity and can help you reach new audiences.
- Check funding requirements for language support: Some grants and public funding may require content in specific languages, especially in officially bilingual or multilingual regions.
2. Choose your approach
Based on your needs assessment and available resources, there are broadly three main approaches that cultural organisations might adopt:
Full translation
- All content available in all supported languages
- Best for venues with large international audiences
- Requires significant resources to maintain
This comprehensive approach ensures that every page, event description, and piece of content is available in all your supported languages. While ideal for venues with truly international audiences, full translation requires substantial investment in both initial translation and ongoing maintenance as content changes.
Example: Muziekgebouw offers its entire website in Dutch and English, reflecting its status as an internationally renowned, open and welcoming music venue in Amsterdam.
Core content translation
- Essential information translated (events, booking, directions)
- Good balance of accessibility and manageable workload
- Clear about what is and isn't translated
This focused approach prioritises translating content that visitors need most: information about current exhibitions or shows, booking instructions, directions, and accessibility information. This strikes a balance between meeting visitors' practical needs and maintaining a manageable workload.
Many regional theatres translate performance information and booking details while keeping blog posts or detailed history pages in their primary language only.
Key information pages
- Basic visitor information in multiple languages
- Minimum viable approach
- Good starting point for smaller venues
This approach focuses on creating a few dedicated pages with essential visitor information in multiple languages. While limited, it can still significantly improve the experience for international visitors by providing crucial information about location, opening hours, and ticketing.
Smaller galleries might create a single "Visitor Information" page in several languages, while keeping the rest of their content in their primary language.
Implementation best practices
Once you've chosen your approach, these best practices will help ensure your multilingual content is technically sound, linguistically accurate, and culturally appropriate.
1. Technical considerations
Proper technical implementation ensures your multilingual content is accessible to both users and search engines. These technical considerations are handled by the Peppered platform:
- Use language tags (hreflang): These HTML tags help search engines understand which language each page is in, improving SEO for international audiences.
- Implement proper URL structure (/en/, /fr/, etc.): A clear URL structure helps users identify language options and allows search engines to properly index multilingual content.
- Ensure proper character encoding: Use UTF-8 encoding to properly display characters from all languages, including those with non-Latin alphabets.
2. Content guidelines
The quality of your translation significantly impacts its effectiveness:
- Keep original content clear and concise: Write your primary language content with translation in mind, avoiding unnecessarily complex language.
- Avoid idioms and cultural references that don't translate well: Expressions like "break a leg" or references to local cultural phenomena may not make sense when translated literally.
- Use universal date and time formats: Consider using formats that are unambiguous across cultures (e.g., writing out month names rather than using all-numeric dates).
- Consider cultural differences in colour meanings: Be aware that colours can have different cultural associations; what symbolises joy in one culture might represent mourning in another.
3. Navigation and UI
Thoughtful navigation design helps users find and switch between languages. These navigation and UI functions are handled by the Peppered platform:
- Make language selection obvious: Use a clearly visible language selector, typically in the header or footer of each page.
- Use language names in their native form: Display each language in its own script (e.g., "English," "Français," "Español," "中文") rather than using flags, which represent countries, not languages.
- Maintain consistent navigation across languages: Keep the site structure identical across languages so users who switch languages don't get lost.
- Clearly show current language: Make sure users always know which language they're currently viewing.
Cultural considerations
Effective multilingual communication goes beyond literal translation to consider cultural context. This is sometimes called transcreation where you still retain the original message but the content is adapted or recreated to make it more relevant in other languages and cultures.
- Adapt rather than translate cultural references: Work with native speakers to find culturally relevant alternatives for idioms, jokes, or cultural references.
- Consider local customs and sensitivities: What's acceptable in one culture may be offensive in another. Review content for potentially problematic references.
- Review date, time, and currency formats: Adapt formats to match local conventions (DD/MM/YYYY vs MM/DD/YYYY, 24-hour vs 12-hour time, etc.) or use a format that’s more universally accepted.
Managing multilingual content
Sustainable management of multilingual content requires careful planning:
Content management systems
Choose a CMS that supports multilingual content management:
- Translation workflow: Look for systems that make it easy to identify and update content that needs translation. Machine translation by AI can help speed up your workflow.
- Version control: Ensure your CMS helps you track which translations need updating when original content changes.
- Reusable content modules: Systems that allow you to reuse content modules can significantly reduce translation costs as you’d only need to translate modular content blocks once.
Maintenance planning
Plan for ongoing maintenance of your multilingual content:
- Budget for updates: Set aside resources for updating translations when original content changes.
- Prioritise critical updates: Develop a system for identifying which content changes absolutely must be translated immediately.
- Regular audits: Schedule periodic reviews to identify outdated translations or content that needs translation.
Measuring success
To justify investment in multilingual content, track these key metrics:
- Website engagement: Compare time on site, pages per session, and bounce rates across language versions.
- Conversion rates: Track whether multilingual content improves ticket purchases or sign-ups from non-native speakers.
- Customer feedback: Collect input from visitors about their experience with your multilingual content.
- Geographic reach: Monitor changes in the geographic distribution of your audience.
Breaking language barriers is not just about translation, it's about creating genuine connections with diverse audiences. By thoughtfully planning your multilingual strategy and implementing it with cultural sensitivity, you can make your cultural venue truly welcoming to all.
Whether you start with a comprehensive approach or begin with key information pages, any step toward multilingual content brings you closer to a more inclusive and accessible cultural experience. The effort invested will pay dividends in audience diversification, increased engagement, and a truly global reach for your cultural offerings.
Ready to develop your multilingual strategy? CultureSuite's Peppered CMS offers robust multilingual support with features designed specifically for arts and culture organisations. Our platform makes it easy to manage content in multiple languages while maintaining a consistent visitor experience across all your digital touchpoints.
Let’s make culture accessible to all
- Want to make your website more accessible?
All CultureSuite customers can take advantage of our comprehensive accessibility audit at discounted rates. Just get in touch to register your interest and we’ll get you onto the programme. Get in touch. - Need guidance on accessibility for your venue?
If you're not currently a CultureSuite customer, we recommend connecting with our trusted accessibility partners in your region. For venues in the Netherlands and Belgium, reach out to Digitaal Toegankelijk. UK venues should contact Accessible by Design. - Want to see how Peppered works?
We’re proud of how easy we make it for venues to manage their website. That’s why live event venues around the world trust Peppered. Book a personalised demo. - Looking to partner with us?
If you’re a technology provider, design agency or supplier for the arts and culture sector, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here. - Want to learn more about digital tools for venues?
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