Experience
Serve every guest in their own language
Translating isn't understanding, and guests can tell from the very first sentence.
When guests arrive at a hotel far from home, the most tiring part isn't the trip or the time difference. It's wrestling with the language to ask for something as simple as a towel or what time breakfast opens. It's a small friction that repeats many times a day, and it ends up deciding whether guests leave feeling looked after or feeling in the way.
That's why multilingual service is no box to tick on a sales sheet. It's probably the most underrated difference between a hotel that feels premium and one that only sells itself as premium.
Why the guest's language matters more than it seems
Three things happen when guests can speak their own language, and don't when they have to get by in one they "sort of manage":
- They ask for more. A guest who has to translate every sentence in their head to order room service simply doesn't order. They go without dinner and think less of the hotel. When they can ask in their own language, they ask.
- They tell you sooner. Small issues get reported while they're still small. A dripping shower flagged on day one gets fixed; flagged on day three, it's a complaint.
- They trust you. Feeling understood is the essence of quiet luxury. You don't need a butler if the hotel answers you in your own language.
Word-for-word translation is not understanding
There's a classic trap in brochure-style multilingual service: translate the interface, upload an FAQ with a row of flags and tick the box. That's a coat of paint, and it shows the moment a guest types the first sentence nobody planned for.
Guests don't type "restaurant menu". They type "I'm coeliac, what can I have for dinner?", "my son doesn't eat fish" or "can I leave my bag after checkout and pick it up at seven?". Those only get solved when the system understands intent, not when it swaps words for other words.
That's why a translated FAQ chatbot falls short. And why a phone menu saying "press 1 for English" is the opposite of multilingual service: it's one language in disguise.
Which languages Estevano covers
Your guests use the app in Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese or Italian, and the concierge replies in whichever language they write in.
Estevano Voice, the AI voice receptionist, handles up to 6 languages, and each hotel chooses which. If the guest speaks one of them, it answers in theirs, with no "press 1" menus.
Behind the language there's a single platform. The guest asks in German, the team reads it translated in the console, which runs in Spanish and English, and the reply goes back to the guest in German.
Multilingual chat
In the app, guests write the way they talk, in their own language. The concierge understands what they're really asking for, passes it to the right department and replies in the language they wrote in.
That's a world away from bolting a translator onto an old-school chatbot that just swaps one word for another.
Multilingual voice
On the phone, language is non-negotiable. A guest who calls in German and hits a recording in Spanish has hung up before the first sentence. That's why Estevano Voice answers in the guest's language whenever it's one the hotel has switched on.
It's the channel where multilingual service pays off first: it closes the gap of calls lost simply because nobody on that shift speaks the language.
When a hotel needs real multilingual service
If a good share of your guests don't speak the local language, multilingual service stops being a nice-to-have and becomes a requirement. Beach resorts, cities with international tourism, corporate groups and weddings with guests from several countries are the obvious cases. But even a city hotel with a mostly domestic crowd gets guests from abroad who care a lot about being understood.
A simple test: look at your team and ask which languages it covers, and on which shifts. If the answer changes a lot by time and day, you already have the use case.
How to tell it's working
Three simple signals:
- Which languages come in through chat and voice.
- How many requests get solved without the team stepping in, by language.
- A quick question at checkout: "Did you feel looked after in your language?"
If all three improve after you switch on multilingual chat and voice, it's doing its job.
To see it for your hotel, take a look at the plans or, if you want the app in your hotel's brand, white label.