Accessibility and inclusion through tourism translation

The language used in tourism communication plays a vital role in either facilitating or hindering accessibility. This chapter examines how linguistic choices impact inclusive tourism experiences by looking especially at museum contexts and public signage. As museums strive for more inclusion, translation plays a crucial role in making cultural heritage accessible to hearing and visually impaired visitors, non-native speakers, and target groups with different cognitive abilities. For these reasons, but also because of the multiple functions that museum texts fulfil, not to mention their multimodal nature, translators face many challenges when it comes to adopting the principles of Universal Design to help cultural institutions and museums create a more immersive, equitable, and enriching experience for all visitors, regardless of their linguistic and sensory abilities. After discussing translation issues in on-site museum genres, with specific reference to audio description, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the linguistic landscape.