Tourist languages

We know that English is the most important World language. But I would like to know which languages, apart from English, are use in Tourist information centres or Hotel receptions around the World.

I think that French, German and Spanish are more used, but I am not sure.

Thanks.

In the Tourist information centre of Montparnasse, Paris, there are people that speak English and Spanish, at least. I do not know about German or other languages.

In my hotel in Paris, people spoke in English and one or two of them in Spanish.

In a hotel in San Francisco they spoke English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Russian, that I know of, and probably more.

In a tourist information centre of Victoria Station, London was astonishing. They spoke only English. Nobody spoke French, Spanish or German. They need to be more polite with tourists.

German is not spoken, I think English is the most widespread

If you come to Macau or Hong Kong, I think all the receptionists can offer would be (fair or quite broken) English and (good or very broken) Mandarin. Depending on places, you might be able to find *specialized* tour guides who speak Japanese, and I've been told that flight attendants based in Hong Kong might speak Japanese/German/French + English + Mandarin.

I reckon that there are more multilingual employees in other parts of China. No, Taiwan and Hong Kong, for example, don't share borders with foreign countries, so generally only English would be relevant.

I've been out of luck to see any true Portuguese influence in Macau. While being official, only aspiring civil servants have to learn it. You can see Pt. words everywhere, but *no one* understands them. People are simply paying more attention to the gambling industry which is heavily targeted at Chinese customers. So... it might be retained only to preserve some trivial commercial + diplomatic links with Portugal.

Spain and Mexico send lots of tourists every year, and they're also two of the top ten destinations worldwide, so I think Spanish is quite important when dealing with tourists.

Due to the huge influx of Nepalese tourists here in Nottingham I had my hotel staff learn Nepalese.

<<Spain and Mexico send lots of tourists every year, and they're also two of the top ten destinations worldwide, so I think Spanish is quite important when dealing with tourists.>>

Erik is asking about the tourist themselves, not destinations. It's an absolute joke to say Spanish is an important tourist language. The Spanish travel less than any western European nations. The Mexicans aren't tourists. They're migrants, big difference. And the only country they go to is America. On a global basis, important tourists languages are English, German, French and Japanese. Spanish might be down around 10 or something.

Latin America is the most important touristic destination and many if not the biggest part of the tourists are Spaniards so Spanish is an important language in tourism because of destination and the tourists themselves.

Well, Spanish language is more important than I thought. I really thought that my language was not so important as touristic language. However, that is not true. I explain you an example to show the importance of this language.

I was in the Opera House of Budapest, Hungary, like a tourist. We were waiting 5 minutes, divided by language. There were only 5 groups:

Italian language, some 4 people.

German language, some 6 people.

French language, some 4 people.

Spanish language, some 20 people.

English language, some 25 people. Here there were a lot of Japanese speakers and from other Asiatic countries.


The most astonishing thing was that there were only 4 Spaniards and 16 Latin Americans. My woman and I were a minority in my group. I remember that, because they made jokes about European Spanish, the ugliest pronuntiation of Spanish, according to them. I suppose they were joking to us and to the Hungarian girl that spoke European Spanish.

Anyway, I suppose that some 6 or 8% of Latin Americans, including Hispanics of USA, travel around the world like tourists. If you add Spaniards, there are a lot of Spanish speaking tourists.

I thought like JLK, but when I go to other countries like tourist, there is at least one person that speak Spanish in Hotels and Museums, even in Central Europe or North Africa.

That is a big problem because I forget my English:)

I forgot to explain that when I was in Italy, in other museum divided by the same languages, Brazilian and Portuguese people came with us. I remember that because the tourist guide asked if he should speak slowly or not. They say that it was not necessary. They understood Spanish perfectly.

Previous post was not mine. Delete it, danke.


Guest: Latin America is not the most important tourist destination. That title belongs to Europe. Latin American is poor, 3rd world, political unstable and corrupt continent. Everyone knows that and tourists are becoming scared to travel there.

Spaniard: What I said still stands. It is an absolute fact that Spaniards travel less and spend less than their western European neighbors and they rarely leave Europe. Latin Americans are generally speaking too poor to do anything but migrate(illegally) north. In my many travels, I have never met a Latin American tourist, so it must be a very small number. If you want work with tourists learn English, German, French, and Japanese. These guys travel everywhere.

Russian and Chinese are becoming stronger (travelingwise).