Tourists’ Reception of Translated Materials and Translation Service at Iranian Heritage Sites
A Tripadvisor Study
Abstract
Heritage sites are culturally and historically significant locations that preserve monuments and artifacts reflecting human traditions. These sites attract numerous domestic and international visitors, making the provision of high-quality services essential for the tourism industry. Among these services, translation plays a critical role in improving foreign tourists’ experiences. This study assesses translated materials and translation services at Iranian heritage sites by analyzing online reviews, utilizing Chesterman’s Translation Reception framework to evaluate tourists’ responses. Tripadvisor, a platform for sharing traveler experiences and reviews, was used to analyze 522 reviews from visitors to 45 heritage sites across Iran’s twelve most popular tourist cities. The pilot study identified four main themes and ten sub-themes related to interlingual and metaphorical translation. Reviews were categorized accordingly, revealing that the most frequently mentioned theme was the availability of translated materials. This suggests that tourists’ demand for access to translated content may overshadow the necessity for high-quality translations and the role of site staff and tour guides as either interlingual or metaphorical translators. Overall, 68% of reviews were positive, while 32% were negative. This research addresses a gap in translation reception through visitor feedback analysis, providing actionable insights for staff and translators at heritage sites, enabling them to better understand tourist expectations and improve their services to create more satisfying visitor experiences.
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Copyright Licensee: Iranian Journal of Translation Studies. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0 license).
