By now, most of the major US airlines offer Spanish-languange content on their Web sites But only a few offer fully localized flight reservation systems, which is where the money is.

A few years ago, Southwest Airlines was the first to launch a localized reservation engine. This was followed by Continental, Northwest, and Alaska Air. It’s fun to watch momentum build for Web localization within industries. Once a leader takes the plunge the rest dive right in.

And now American Airlines has launched a reservation engine in Spanish. Not only is the engine in Spanish, but the site offers a Spanish “gateway” at www.aa.com/espanol where users select their home country. From what I can tell American Airlines is using the “universal” flavor of Spanish, which, despite its critics, has worked quite well for the many companies I’ve spoken with over the years. So, kudos to AA.com.

Now, who will be next airline to upgrade? Will it be United? Jet Blue? Both have Spanish content on their Web sites, but still no flight reservation engine.

Back before the Internet, I worked in marketing for a publishing house and we were coming out with a dictionary of Hispanic culture in the US. During the marketing meeting, the issue of the title came up: Hispanic vs. Latino? We must have wasted a good hour on the issue without any firm conclusion. Boy would Google have come in handy then.

I think we settled on Hispanic but nobody was really sure what the right answer was.
Continue reading →