Where are Language Services Needed Most?
As international markets continue to expand and develop, more and more industries are expanding their use of translation, interpretation, and other language and cultural services. While some of these expanded use cases are fairly routine, many more are increasingly novel, and represent a higher interest across all industries to participate in a globalized economy. At 7C Lingo, we’ve witnessed this increased interest in language services first hand, and believe that any company emerging out of the “small business” phase of its personal development should be aware of these changes in order to maximize their potential. Here are five industries that we think you should keep an eye on.
Healthcare
Of course, immigrant populations will continue to need translators and interpreters in order to receive adequate medical care. This is well trodden ground that even the government is prepared for, as the Biden administration has recently released their plans for updating the provisions in the affordable care act that impact patients requiring medical language interpretation services. However, an aspect that has not been fully explored is the amount of medical technology and scientific breakthroughs that are now coming from outside of English speaking countries. For example, many Chinese labs are trailblazing novel research paths when it comes to diagnosing strokes, influenza, and malaria, just to name a few. This research, as well as the medicine and equipment generated from it, will need translators skilled in the medical field in order to help bring it to an international patient base.
Financial Investments
Foreign Direct Investments, or FDI’s, are an ever expanding pillar of modern investment strategies. While investing in emerging markets is a strategy as old as the stock market itself, many financial institutions are pushing for individuals to diversify their portfolios by putting their money into overseas projects, with investment firms like Vanguard recommending having anywhere between 20% and 40% of your total portfolio tied up in FDI’s. This is mostly a consequence of several countries rapidly expanding their economies, such as the member-states of the BRICS economic organization like China, Brazil, and India. Because of this expanded market presence, many brokerage firms are looking to expand the amount of language and culture experts they work with in order to keep their market predictions and international connections sound and objective.
Video Games
It may come as a surprise to some, but the video games industry has year over year been the fastest growing entertainment industry. In 2022, the games industry grossed a total of $347 billion, greatly outpacing the $220 billion generated by the television industry and the $42 billion generated by the film industry that year. Because games have production cycles measured in years and budgets that can be in the nine digits, many companies cannot afford not to advertise to an international market. This means hiring teams to translate scripts and in-game text, hiring different voice actors, localizing the advertising material and packaging, and working with culture sensitivity firms to ensure that all material in the game is conformed to the standards of the target market. Needless to say, this results in a lot of work funneling towards language and cultural service companies.
Travel and Tourism
While many industries are experiencing a rebound from the economic difficulties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, very few success stories can compare to the recent boom the tourism and travel industries have experienced in the last year. An estimated 790 million people have traveled in 2024 alone. What is even more interesting, though, is that many people are traveling to regions of the world that have historically not been vacation hot spots. For example, the Middle East saw a 31% increase in tourism in 2023 alone. As new novel tourism markets emerge, the need for competent language and culture experts will rise as well, to ensure that all marketing material can reach an international audience and that hospitality services can accommodate people from a wide array of backgrounds.
E-Commerce
With most people doing the majority of their shopping through the internet, both domestic and international e-commerce sites like Amazon, Alibaba, and Etsy continue to thrive. Because of their diverse catalog of items and the wide array of countries these sites cater to, many of these companies are in desperate need of translation services for the content on their site. While AI solutions have emerged, such as Google Translate or Amazon Translate, these models suffer translating several languages due to a lack of training data. While AI might get better as more and more data is fed into the model, the need to translate into languages like Mandarin or Hindi are needed now, which has led to many digital corporations looking for translators to beef up their marketing.
