A multilingual website for a tourism business
For a tourism business on the island the languages that justify their cost are Spanish, English and German, with the decision resting on where enquiries actually come from rather than on how many languages competitors display.
gelisted editorial team · Updated 15 August 2026
The short version
- Professional translation costs 0,08 € to 0,15 € per word.
- Each language multiplies the maintenance burden of the site.
- The URL structure must be decided before the site is built.
- Machine translation without review costs enquiries.
Adding a language is not adding a flag. It is doubling the pages to write, update and keep coherent for as long as the site exists.
Which languages pay
Decide from the data, not from the competition. Where do enquiries come from now, where do bookings come from, and which nationalities dominate in the specific segment served. For most tourism businesses on the island that means Spanish, English and German, with others added only where a real and measurable flow justifies the ongoing cost.
| Item | Cost | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Professional translation | 0,08 to 0,15 € per word | per language |
| A 20 page site | 1,200 to 3,000 € | per language |
| Ongoing maintenance | 20 to 40 % more effort | per language |
| Review by a native speaker | 0,03 to 0,06 € per word | on machine translation |
| Structure with subfolders | recommended | example.com/en/ |
| Language tags | required | for correct indexing |
| Automatic redirect by location | discouraged | blocks users and crawlers |
Why machine translation costs money
Not because it is unreadable but because it is subtly wrong: a price described in the wrong terms, a cancellation condition that reads as a promise, a service name that means something else. In a booking decision those small errors create doubt, and doubt costs the enquiry. Machine translation reviewed by a native speaker at 0,03 € to 0,06 € per word is a reasonable compromise.
The structure
Decide it before building. Subfolders by language are the simplest to maintain and the clearest to index. Every page needs its language declared and its equivalents in the other languages linked, so search engines serve the right version. And avoid automatic redirection based on the visitor's location, which traps a German speaker in Palma on the Spanish version with no way out.
The language switcher should sit in the header and lead to the equivalent page, not always back to the home page.
What to translate and what not
Everything a customer needs to decide: services, prices, conditions, contact and the legal pages. Not necessarily the whole blog, where a selection of the most useful articles per language is more sustainable than translating everything and then updating none of it. A site with 3 well maintained languages outperforms one with 6 abandoned ones.
Frequently asked
+Which languages should a tourism business have?
Spanish, English and German for most island businesses, decided from where enquiries actually come.
+What does translation cost?
Between 0,08 € and 0,15 € per word, so 1,200 € to 3,000 € for a 20 page site per language.
+Is machine translation acceptable?
Only with native review at 0,03 € to 0,06 € per word, because subtle errors cost enquiries.
+How should the URLs be structured?
With subfolders per language, each page declaring its language and linking its equivalents.
+Should I redirect visitors automatically?
No. It traps visitors on the wrong version and interferes with correct indexing.
Sources
- 1Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE (August 2026)
- 2Govern de les Illes Balears, Govern de les Illes Balears (August 2026)