A multilingual website for tourists: when and how

In short

A website in several languages makes sense when a large share of your customers don’t speak Italian and choose online before they arrive: people booking a room, looking for a restaurant or a shop on holiday. Pick languages based on who actually comes to you, have the text translated by someone who really knows the language, and give each language its own URLs, linked together with hreflang, so Google shows everyone the right version.

When it really pays off.

It pays off if foreign customers matter to your business and make their decisions online, before they arrive: someone booking a B&B in Genoa from another country, someone looking for a restaurant near their hotel, someone walking past your shop with a phone in hand. If you work almost only with locals, a second language can wait. A few signs it’s time:

you often get calls or messages in English or other languages;
on booking sites, many reviews are in other languages;
you explain the same menu or the same information out loud several times a day.

Which languages to choose.

Start with the customers you actually get, not the ones you wish you had. Look at where bookings and reviews come from, and ask your staff which languages they hear most. English is almost always the first choice, because many visitors who aren’t native speakers understand it too. Then add only the languages that really matter: two well-kept languages beat five neglected ones.

There’s a newer reason too: assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini mostly pick sources in the language of the question. A Johns Hopkins University study presented at NAACL 2025 showed that AI models prefer documents written in the asker’s language and, when they can’t find any, fall back on other websites in English. For a B&B, that means that without pages in English, an AI will answer people who ask in English with booking portals and other people’s websites.

Real translation or machine.

The browser’s built-in translator helps visitors, but it isn’t your website: it gets dish names, idioms and practical directions wrong, and you can’t control it. Publishing machine-translated text without reviewing it is worse: a mistake about opening hours, prices or allergens causes real problems.

A good translation adapts the text: it explains what farinata is, says how to get there from the station, and uses the words a visitor would actually search for. When it’s done, have a native speaker read it all.

Machine-translating and publishing in bulk is also a typical sign of a low-quality web: an Amazon study presented at ACL 2024 found that text machine-translated into many languages is largely low-quality content. In its spam policies, Google treats pages produced in large numbers with no value for readers as “scaled content abuse”, however they’re made.

What you don’t see needs checking too: the title and description shown on Google, the alt text of images and the structured data. Google asks for these to be reviewed by hand when they’re produced with automated tools, just like the page text.

What to translate first.

The pages that lead to contact: home page, services or rooms, contact and booking.
Practical information: opening hours, directions, parking, check-in, house rules.
Buttons, forms and confirmation messages: an English form that shows an error in Italian stops people in their tracks.
Page titles and descriptions for Google, the first thing people read in search results.
Frequently asked questions, which are the same in every language.

Google recommends keeping the content and navigation of each page in a single language: translating only the menu and buttons while leaving the text in Italian confuses readers.

One URL per language.

Each language should have its own URLs, for example yoursite.it/camere for Italian and yoursite.it/en/rooms for English. Google recommends separate URLs rather than switching languages with cookies or browser settings, and advises against automatically redirecting people based on the language it assumes they speak: a clearly visible language switcher that lets them choose is better.

Then there’s hreflang: a note in the code of each page that tells Google “this is the Italian version, that’s the English one.” Each version must list itself and all the others, in both directions, or Google ignores the annotations. It won’t push you up the rankings: it helps Google show everyone the version in their language. You’ll find other technical terms in our glossary.

Menus and welcome books in many languages.

For a restaurant, the menu is the page visitors read the most. In digital form, guests pick their language with one tap and find the same layout as the Italian version. A note on allergens: Italy’s Legislative Decree 231/2017, the national law on food information, requires allergen information in Italian anyway, so translations are added alongside it, not instead of it. We explain how digital menus work in our guide to digital menus with QR codes.

The same goes for the welcome book of a B&B or holiday rental: check-in instructions, Wi-Fi, house rules and neighbourhood tips in the guest’s language save you a lot of repeated questions.

To translate your menu, see our guide “Your menu in English”; to know what to tell your guests, see “What to include in a welcome book”.

Mistakes to avoid.

Updating only the Italian: different hours and prices from one language to the next.
Flags instead of languages: a flag stands for a country, not a language. Write “English”, “Deutsch”, “Français” instead.
Deciding for the visitor by sending them automatically to one version without letting them choose.
Half-translated pages, with paragraphs left in Italian.

A multilingual website with Aleryc.

For Aleryc websites, versions in multiple languages are among the features we add based on what your business needs. We prepare the versions in other languages ourselves and recommend a final check by a native speaker; the cost depends on how many languages and how many pages are needed, and you’ll find it in the quote. For hospitality businesses, see our page on websites for B&Bs and hotels. Digital menus and the digital welcome book can also be in several languages, chosen together based on who you welcome most often. Write to us (in English, by email or WhatsApp) and we’ll figure out together which languages your business really needs.

Sources.

Sources consulted on 27 October 2026.

FAQ

The questions we get asked most.

It helps visitors understand, but you can’t control it: it can get dish names, opening hours and practical directions wrong. A version that’s translated properly and checked by a native speaker is clearer and more reliable.

It’s a note in the code that tells Google which pages are the same page in different languages. You need it when your website has several languages with separate URLs: it helps Google show everyone the version in their language.

Yes. We prepare them ourselves and recommend a final check by a native speaker. The cost depends on how many languages and how many pages are needed, and you’ll find it in the quote.

Write to us

Tell us about your business. We’ll build the rest together.

Write to us in English by email or WhatsApp: we’ll listen, ask you a few questions and tell you honestly what we would do in your place. Video calls and phone calls are in Italian.