Do You Have to Speak Italian to Go on Holiday to Italy?
By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2010-10-11 08:33:45 | Word Count: 518
For a stranger, arriving in Italy is often complicated, because there are few places, whether you talk about Riccione, Latina or Pesaro, where a tourist who does not speak the language can get to be understood without having to use their fantasy to express.
Given the beauty of the Italian territory, there are few complaints a tourist can make after having stayed in a Cervia or Cattolica hotel or in any other place: you might have nothing to say on the landscape, neither on the historic and artistic richness. You could find something to say on the efforts that Italians make to make life easier to the stranger tourists who do not speak Italian, though.
It’s not only a matter of courtesy: the philosophy “we are in Italy and we talk Italian” makes the tourists walk away, and you can see the results at the end of the season: not only Gabicce and Milano Marittima, but also other very famous touristic destinations felt the disappointment of the stranger tourists. The main reason for their disappointment is that tourists start complaining of what they feel as a lack of good will on the Italians part to make an effort to express themselves if not in the tourist’s mother tongue at least in a decent English, which would give the chance to everyone to communicate thanks to the language that, nowadays, knows no frontiers. After all, English is the official language in 53 countries all over the world, while Italian is official in Italy, San Marino, Vatican, Switzerland and some areas of Croatia and Slovenia.
There are other numbers to which we can refer to: 75% of stranger tourists, which means three out of four, declared their non satisfaction about the linguistic facilities offered by hoteliers, restaurateurs and storekeepers in general. Moreover, talking about the Adriatic Riviera, we can also say that the origin of the strangers is changing a lot: if before the summertime touristic population was mainly German and French, now the Adriatic beaches are crowded by Russians, which complicates the linguistic part of hospitality, being the Russian language less common in the Italian schools and universities, apart from its roots being very far from Italian ones.
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Hence, what is asked to the touristic cities, and to all hoteliers in general is not only to offer the good professional services they can already give: a linguistic effort is asked, to avoid stranger tourists being obliged to speak Italian to visit the Bel Paese.
In fact, it’s nothing more than what anyone expect when out of his or her country: whatever our mother tongue may be, we always expect to find someone who speaks at least English. Hence, we can understand the protests of the tourists: to attract them again in Italy, they need a kind of linguistic safety, which will translate the efforts of the Italians into good results at the end of the season.
Author Resource:- This article was written by Lia Contesso, with support from albergo cattolica.
