When machine translation gets a bit too… bubbly

When machine translation gets a bit too… bubbly

“Snuggle under a cosy blanket on a heated boat, sip endless bubbles, and cruise through the canals.” It’s the kind of line that sells itself – romantic, cosy, quietly luxurious and perfectly at home on a glossy travel website or an Instagram carousel. You can almost feel the blanket and hear the clink of glasses.

Now meet its machine-translated version:
„…schlürfen Sie endlose Seifenblasen…“

For non-German speakers, here’s the back translation: “…sip endless soap bubbles.” Yes, soap. Not champagne. Not prosecco. Actual washing-up-liquid vibes. At this point, the dreamy canal cruise starts to feel less like a premium experience and more like a medical emergency waiting to happen.

And this is where machine translation in tourism marketing becomes dangerous. Not because of a missing comma or a slightly odd word choice, but because it sells the wrong experience. In travel, words don’t just describe what’s on offer – they create expectations, set the mood and make promises people are happy to pay for. When those promises suddenly involve guests politely slurping detergent, something has clearly gone off the rails.

MT is fast, cheap and useful in the right context, but without a human translator check it has a talent for turning bubbles into soap, cosiness into confusion and brand trust into a very awkward silence. So, by all means, go ahead and use AI. Just don’t let it rewrite your luxury experience into a cleaning advert.

Over to you – what’s the funniest or most alarming machine translation fail you’ve spotted in travel or marketing content?

#TranslationFails #TourismMarketing #MachineTranslation #LocalisationMatters #BrandVoice #TravelContent #AIinTranslation #TourismTranslations