Localization Strategy
As a global travel platform, Expedia supports both travelers and hoteliers/property owners around the world. To support this global marketplace, we plan to provide localized data in the following languages for all data files:
| Language | Country/Region | Locale |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | South Africa | ar-SA |
| Chinese | China | zh-CN |
| Czech | Czech Republic | cs-CZ |
| Danish | Denmark | da-DK |
| Dutch | Netherlands | nl-NL |
| English | Great Britain | en-GB |
| English | United States | en-US |
| Finnish | Finland | fi-FI |
| French | Canada | fr-CA |
| French | France | fr-FR |
| German | Germany | de-DE |
| Greek | Greece | el-GR |
| Hungarian | Hungary | hu-HU |
| Icelandic | Iceland | is-IS |
| Indonesian | Indonesia | id-ID |
| Italian | Italy | it-IT |
| Japanese | Japan | ja-JP |
| Korean | Korea (South) | ko-KR |
| Malaysian | Malaysia | ms-MY |
| Norwegian | Norway | nb-NO |
| Polish | Poland | pl-PL |
| Portuguese | Brazil | pt-BR |
| Portuguese | Portugal | pt-PT |
| Russian | Russia | ru-RU |
| Slovakian | Slovakia | sk-SK |
| Spanish | Spain | es-ES |
| Spanish | Mexico | es-MX |
| Spanish | United States | es-US |
| Swedish | Sweden | sv-SE |
| Thai | Thailand | th-TH |
| Turkish | Turkey | tr-TR |
| Ukrainian | Ukraine | uk-UA |
| Vietnamese | Vietnam | vi-VN |
| Traditional Chinese | Taiwan | zh-TW |
| Traditional Chinese | Hong Kong | zh-HK |
Once localization has been released for a particular data file, you will designate the language of the download through inserting the corresponding locale value into an API query to the Download URL API.
Each file has a different amount of localizable content, which means that for some files (Summary, for instance) there will be 33 different versions to map to each locale value listed. For other files (Listings, for instance) all requested languages will return a file with a locale value of en_US. This has been done to minimize duplicate files, while still enabling Expedia to provide localized content down the road, should additional localized data become available.
Notes on Localization
There are several decisions that went into our localization strategy:
Actual Localized Content — Some files (such as Property Descriptions) have a great deal of localizable content. Other files (such as Images) have almost none. Rather than pursue a different localization plan for each file, we have chosen to produce all files in all languages to make the automation of file downloads more consistent for partners.
While we have included all available localized content it must be noted that, in many cases, there will not be appreciable differences between content in different versions of the localized files.
Languages by Locale — There are some situations where property content in a given language may be markedly different in two countries where that language is used (Portuguese in Portugal vs. Brazil for instance). In these cases, we have chosen to include more than one version of that language.
In other cases, the actual differences in lodging static content between two countries may be almost non-existent (English in England vs. Australia for example), and in those instances we have chosen to make a single version of that language available to service the needs of more than one country.
- Additional Languages — We have chosen the 33 locales above for the initial release of this data platform. Should additional versions be required, we will explore adding them at a future time.