New Research Report Reveals Trends for Using Translation and Interpretation at Multilingual Meetings and Events

Posted on

June 8, 2022

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We are excited to publish a new research report, the 2022 State of Multilingual Collaboration, a comprehensive global study by Dimensional Research that provides deep insights from corporate meeting and event managers into interpretation and translation trends, challenges, and initiatives impacting multilingual collaboration. The findings clearly illustrate that although corporate meeting and event planners are experiencing a significant increase in multilingual meetings, most are not regularly offering interpretation to bridge the language gap.

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77% of respondents observed an increase in multilingual attendees in the last 12 months, with 58% reporting that over 25% of their audience speaks a different language than the presenter. As expected a primary driver of the increase was the shift to virtual events during the pandemic. As COVID restrictions lessen, 72% still expect the multilingual trend to continue over the next year. But despite the number of multilingual events, only 33% regularly offer interpretation.

Additional key findings from the 2022 State of Multilingual Collaboration Study include:

  • 60% of event managers report their attendees typically speak more than 5 primary languages, and 23% report they have more than 10 languages.
  • 42% have limited to no experience with interpretation services.
  • Top barriers for providing interpretation include:
    • Translator scheduling complexity (40%), equipment complexity (39%)
    • Too many languages to support (37%)
    • Apathy to audience needs - believing attendees will understand the language well enough or choose not to attend the event (40%).
  • Respondents identified several attendee benefits to providing translation services including increased inclusivity (65%), ability to fully focus on content (60%), better understanding of information (57%), and increased engagement (52%).
  • Business benefits include increased attendee satisfaction (49%), higher event attendance (49%), and better attendee comprehension (40%).

The results of this study demonstrate that sales and marketing professionals responsible for planning and managing multilingual meetings and events want to increase inclusivity and engagement in order to reach more global employees, customers and partners. It also validates that language barriers are a significant obstacle, even when participants speak some English.

While human interpretation solutions are still popular, respondents confirmed that there is a growing demand for technology-powered solutions. Respondents indicated that they want solutions that are easy for attendees to use (63%), support all languages spoken (56%), and enable attendees to listen to audio or read captions (48%).

You can review a summary of the research findings in the Research Infographic.

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