MULTILINGUAL SIGNS WELCOME TOURISTS

Experts at the CEO Voice session of the Australian Institute of Management believe that tourism has the potential to be a key economic growth area for Western Australia and it is something Fremantle should tap into and not take tourism for granted.

Statistics show that 62 million Chinese people visit Australia so we need to start embracing them and entice them to come to Fremantle.

What is severely missing in Fremantle are multilingual signs to help direct visitors around our city. Chinese and Japanese visitors, to name just two, can’t read English so they can’t make sense out of street or directional signs. Maybe a phone App would help as even on-line translations might not be helpful when it comes to street names.

At the Fremantle Roundhouse we have many translations for overseas tourists and they appreciate it very much. We have Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Serb/Croat, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Indonesian, etc. so if a small volunteer group can supply a multilingual service than surely the City of Fremantle can do it even bigger and better.

Freo is in a kind of development frenzy, and some of it will be hotels and tourist accommodation, so it is time to start thinking international not only for the City but also for tourist operators and the hospitality industry. What about translating your menu, or part of it, in foreign languages which can be presented to diners on a tablet where all they need to do is click on the ikon of the flag of their country to get the menu in their own language. That’s the kind of stuff BID could be involved in.

Roel Loopers