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Conference
interpretation
The
cost of professional interpretation
Why
do participants come to a conference? To share with others
what they know, to hear what others have to say, in short
to communicate. To do so, they will of course prefer to
speak their own language or at least a language that they
feel comfortable speaking.
This
can be done if there are professional conference interpreters
and simultaneous interpretation equipment.
Real
professional conference interpretation makes true communication
possible between participants of different languages and
different cultural backgrounds.
How
much does this kind of multilingual communication service
cost? In relation to the total costs of a conference, probably
less than you think.
Take
the example of a five-day conference in Bangkok
An
individual participant's costs from another Asian country
would come to about US$2,000, allowing US$750 for airfare,
US$150 per day for hotel accommodation, meals and incidentals
and US$500 for registration. Dividing this by five, a typical
participant would be spending about US$400 per day to attend
the conference.
The
collective costs of organising the conference, such as rental
of meeting rooms, tea or coffee breaks, documents, field
trips, audio-visual and simultaneous interpretation equipment,
are usually financed by delegates' registration fees and
sponsorships. The registration fee for a typical conference
might be about US$500 per participant, including the interpretation
service in three languages.
Here
are some examples of the cost per participant, per day,
of providing professional conference interpreters and equipment,
for meetings of varying sizes and number of languages, calculated
on the basis of our example of a five-day conference in
Bangkok:
Cost
of SI per participant per day, in US dollars
|
Participants
|
2
languages
|
3
languages
|
4
languages
|
|
100
|
35
|
89
|
119
|
|
200
|
18
|
45
|
60
|
|
300
|
13
|
30
|
40
|
|
400
|
10
|
23
|
30
|
|
500
|
8
|
18
|
24
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As
these figures reveal, when spread out over the number of
participants, the cost of simultaneous interpretation is
not high compared to the daily cost each participant incurs
in order to attend the conference and, in fact, modest compared
to its advantages:
a.
better communication which, after all, is the purpose of
the conference;
b.
higher attendance, as more participants will come;
c.
more varied and interesting contributions from different
regions and cultures;
d.
greater prestige for the meeting;
e.
less frustration resulting from not understanding participants
who are forced to speak in a language they do not master.
True
simultaneous interpretation is a very difficult job which
requires special training and experience, in addition to
linguistic abilities. Taking non-professional staff or amateurs
for this job, even at a third of the cost, is a waste of
money and time, a sure recipe for trouble at the meeting.
Professional
interpretation at a major five-day conference usually costs
less than just one of the traditional banquets or receptions
offered. Don't let yourself be tempted to skimp on the cost
of interpretation. Take international communication seriously,
as we do. You won't regret it.
Jean-Pierre
Allain &
Salma Tejpar-Dang
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