Localising a flagship initiative for a growing force in global aviation

Eging Translation and Interpreting (Eging Translation) and Icelandair already had a long and successful partnership when Icelandair asked for help with localising their most original concept yet – the Stopover Buddy project.

Icelandair is one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, using Iceland as a hub to offer travellers an innovative, efficient and cost-effective way of travelling from Europe to North America.

Serving 27 destinations in Europe and 16 in North America, it also offers a unique stopover service, so travellers can extend their stay in Iceland by up to seven nights and really see all that Iceland has to offer.

The challenge

In February 2016, Icelandair launched a brand new initiative – the Stopover Buddy programme. This unique service partnered passengers on a stopover with a member of the Icelandair staff who had the same interests. The idea was that native Icelanders could show the cool hunters what’s hot and what’s not in Reykjavik, the foodies where to find the best bites and the nature lovers how to get up close and personal with the local wildlife.

As a proudly international airline, Icelandair offers its content in a number of different languages, so obviously the Stopover Buddy project was no exception.

The challenge for such a quirky initiative would be to preserve the chatty, whimsical tone of the English content when translating into 8 different languages.

How Eging Translation helped

Through years of experience of working with Icelandair’s content, Eging Translation has built up a pool of linguists in all the relevant languages who are familiar with the stylistic demands of the text and how to adapt it.

This pool includes both translators to initially localise the content, as well as proof-readers to ensure compliance and give it a final stylistic flourish if necessary.

In addition, both a style guide and glossary have been put in place to ensure that all Icelandair’s style and terminology preferences are respected. In addition to translating the creative content that would promote the Stopover Buddy initiative, the linguists also needed to translate the more functional texts, such as FAQs and terms and conditions, and here a different approach was needed – less creative and closer to the source text, to ensure factual accuracy.

The result

The combination of approaches paid off handsomely, with universal praise for both the Stopover Buddy project and the texts supporting it. This unique service can now be offered to travellers from all over Europe and North America with all the promotional and functional text in their own language, making sure they know exactly what’s on offer.

What Icelandair said:

“Eging Translation provided their usual great level of support for us on the Stopover Buddy project. Although the timescales were tight, they were always willing to help and were very responsive. They contributed to making the Stopover Buddy project the success it has been!”