Choicehotels.com, the proprietary web site representing worldwide lodging franchisor Choice Hotels International, has been upgraded to include localized Japanese content.

This new enhancement allows Japanese-speaking travelers to access information about Choice Hotels and its brands, to e-mail Japanese-speaking contacts in the Australia reservations center, and to view the electronic brochures of Japanese hotels in their native language.

When consumers access choicehotels.com, the new Japanese content is automatically presented if the consumers’ Web browser is set for Japanese language. Consumers can choose the Japanese language icon from the homepage of choicehotels.com, or directly access the URL: http://japan.choicehotels.com

Visitors to the updated version of choicehotels.com may now choose between five languages: French, Spanish, German, Japanese and English. Unlike the other translations, the Japanese visitors will be given a telephone number or fax number for booking hotels in Japanese. Online bookings are conducted in English.

“With more than 400 hotels in the Asia Pacific region and growing, it seems like a logical progression to include Japanese as a language option offered on choicehotels.com,” said Mary Beth Knight, vice president of e-commerce for Choice Hotels. “By offering limited Japanese language information and the full reservations capabilities of our web site in four other languages, we are marketing our franchisees’ hotels to millions of potential new guests.”

Translations.com, a New-York based firm, was hired to actually translate the site into Japanese, French, Spanish and German, with oversight provided by Choice Hotels’ international division staff and partners.
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