Translating the intangible: The role of artificial intelligence in the translation of metaphors in tourism discourse

The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools is having a profound impact on many areas of our lives. This article focuses on communication, an area that cuts across disciplines and professions and is crucial for the promotion of tourism destinations. More specifically, this study explores the opportunities that AI offers in the translation of metaphors in tourism discourse, where they convey cultural and emotional meanings and are crucial for appealing to international audiences. This study builds on previous research (Spinzi, 2024) on the translation of metaphors in sustainable tourism discourse and aims to explore AI tools, specifically neural machine translation (NMT) systems, for their translation, with particular reference to GPT-4, the most advanced iteration of GPT. It evaluates AI-driven metaphor translation, its efficiency compared to human translators, and examines its impact on intercultural communication in the tourism sector.