Assessing translation quality of promotional tourist texts: a case study of VisitSaudi website

This study assesses the translation quality of website tourism promotional texts (TPTs) by examining the transfer of Arabic high-context cultural elements into English low context culture. The study developed a conceptual framework for translation quality assessment (TQA)of TPTs with of linguistic, cultural and website promotional dimensions. In this case study, we collected the available promotional texts (34texts) from the genre of Culture and History on the VisitSaudi website forming a corpus of more than ten thousand words for Arabic-English versions. The data was then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively against a rubric developed and validated based on the conceptual framework. The study revealed that the translated texts were linguistically of moderate quality in terms of accuracy, clarity and naturalness(2.06 out of3). As for the cultural quality, most of the translated texts coped with the English low context culture with some ideological discrepancies in traditional texts. For website promotional quality, the translators employed persuasive language in 70% of the texts. More han half of the texts (55%) conveyed the intended promotional messages to the target audience. The website displays photos for each text (100%) which promotes the tourist’s appeal. The website is also found to be user-unfriendly for visitors to write their comments. The study offers some practical implications for tourism website practitioners.