Web MarketingWWW; Mark Berghan argues there's a reason it's called the world wide web.
Sunday, February 1 2004
Mark Berghan argues there's a reason it's called the world wide web.
Only speak English? You may be heading for trouble. Research shows that over half of all people online don't speak English and this is projected to climb to 75% by 2005.
Not convinced? Then look at where New Zealand makes its foreign exchange. Non-English speaking countries consume over 60% of New Zealand exports in dollar terms, make up 17 of the top 20 fastest growing export markets, provide over 55% of all inbound tourist income and represent almost 95% of income from international education.
People from non-English speaking countries use the web in their native language, not English. Over 98% of Japanese search the web in Japanese; only 2% search in English. Sounds logical I know, but how many tourism providers continue to present websites in English only?
Even in one of our biggest English-speaking markets, the US, over 13% of the online population uses the web in a language other than English. That's 21 million people.
