Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.
Hoping to capitalize on a growing Hispanic market, VEGAS.com has launched a Spanish version of its travel website.
The site -- at www.espanol.vegas.com -- was launched Monday after 16 months of planning and development.
"We wanted to be able to invite the Hispanic community to Las Vegas in the most comfortable way possible and that is through Spanish, the language many Hispanics are most comfortable with," said Howard Lefkowitz, president of VEGAS.com.
Lefkowitz said demographic data about Hispanic travelers supported the development of a Spanish-language version of the website, which lists a variety of attractions in Las Vegas and offers a means for booking hotel and airline reservations and acquiring tickets.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which has undertaken its own initiative to advertise the destination in Spanish-language media in California and Arizona markets, said 6 percent of the 35 million visitors to Las Vegas in 2002 were of Hispanic descent. Analysts said there was no way to determine how many of those visitors speak Spanish.
Lefkowitz said Las Vegas is the top U.S. destination visited by U.S. Hispanics in the past 12 months, according to Scarborough Research, and more than 5 million U.S. Hispanics visited travel sites in June, according to comScore Media Metrix.
"Producing the site in Spanish makes for a better user experience," Lefkowitz said. "There are some (Internet) sites that put up a couple of things in Spanish, translated by a machine. We don't feel that's how you serve the community. In our system, we have translations done by people, not machines, and it involves every page, about 70,000 of them. That's why it took so much time to prepare."
VEGAS.com hired a Spanish content manager, Judy Jenner, and 12 bilingual call center personnel to assist Spanish-speaking customers.
The company has devised a content system to produce pages in both languages simultaneously.
Lefkowitz said several travel-oriented Internet sites have Spanish translations, but VEGAS.com is the only destination site to offer a Spanish version. Expedia.com and Hotels.com offer translations in numerous languages and Priceline.com has its site available in Chinese. Southwest Airlines, the busiest commercial air carrier at McCarran International Airport, has several pages translated to Spanish through its Vamonos link on www.southwestairlines.com.
VEGAS.com rival Lasvegas.com has no plans to produce a Spanish translation, said Susan Wilson, general manager of the site. She said her company explored translating the site into several languages, but determined that most visitors to Las Vegas would best navigate the site in English. She said the company is monitoring booking trends and will introduce new features based on company research within a few weeks, but she would not disclose details.
Lefkowitz said VEGAS.com is promoting the Spanish-language site through a media campaign.
An advertising campaign featuring the popular Mr. V series of television and print ads created by kirshenbaum bond & partners west features a bilingual actor portraying a Las Vegas insider who can pull strings to get room and show reservations and a tag line of "It's who you know."
VEGAS.com is a sister company of the Las Vegas Sun.
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