How to serve tourists who don't speak your language: a checklist

To serve tourists who don’t speak your language, make the menu understandable without words (photos, ingredients, allergen marks), let guests ask questions in their own language, and make sure anything safety-related, like allergies, reaches a person who can answer it. The rest is removing small frictions: unclear prices, tipping confusion, and not knowing how to get a waiter’s attention.

Below is a 12-point checklist you can work through in a week, then an example of two guests ordering in Japanese and Arabic at Casa Olivo, our fictional restaurant.

How many of your guests don’t speak your menu’s language?

Short answer: more than you’d guess, and not only tourists.

UN Tourism counted an estimated 1.52 billion international tourist arrivals in 2025, “almost 60 million more than in 2024” (UN Tourism, 20 Jan 2026). Growth has flattened since: about 690 million people travelled internationally in January to June 2026, some 3 million more than a year earlier (UN Tourism, 17 Sep 2026).

Locals count too. In the US, 22% of people aged 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home (US Census Bureau, 3 Jun 2025). In 2024, 60.9% of them said they speak English “very well” (USAFacts, from Census data, updated 13 Aug 2026), which leaves roughly four in ten who might read your menu more slowly or less surely.

The 12-point checklist

1. Find out which languages walk in

Ask your servers which languages they hear each week, and note them for a month. Hotels nearby, tour operators and your booking records help. You can’t cover every language on paper, so pick the top three for printed material and let a chat or translation handle the rest.

2. Keep your printed menu, and add the guest’s language alongside it

Some guests prefer paper, and some places require a printed menu or price list. Add a second language to the printed menu for your top language, or a short insert. QR ordering works alongside the printed menu, not instead of it.

3. Show photos of your main dishes

A photo answers “what is it?” in every language. Photograph the 10 to 15 dishes that sell most, in the portion you actually serve. Skip stock photos; a guest who gets something that doesn’t match the picture won’t trust the rest of the menu.

4. Describe dishes by what’s in them

“Pesto” and “aioli” mean nothing to some guests. Write the main ingredients under each dish name in plain words: “basil, pine nuts, parmesan, olive oil”. Ingredient lists translate far better than poetic descriptions, and they’re what guests with dietary rules need.

5. Mark the regulated allergens on every dish

Use the list that applies where you are. In the US, the FDA names nine major food allergens: “milk, eggs, fish, Crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame” (FDA, checked 15 Oct 2026). In the UK, businesses must tell customers if food contains any of 14 allergens, a list that adds celery, lupin, molluscs, mustard and sulphites (GOV.UK, checked 15 Oct 2026). Symbols with a key work across languages.

6. Make allergies a staff conversation, every time

A written mark isn’t enough on its own. In a study of 2,827 people in a US food-allergy registry, 53.9% of restaurant reactions happened even though the guest had told staff about the allergy (Oriel et al., FARE, 2020). Language barriers make that harder. Set one rule: any allergy mention, in any language, gets a staff member at the table and a check with the kitchen. With WaiterPilot, the chat gives what the menu says and asks the guest to confirm with staff, any note goes on the ticket, and staff have the final say on allergies.

7. Make prices plain

Show what the price includes. If you add tax, a service charge or a cover charge, say so on the menu in your top languages. Guests from countries where prices include everything are the most likely to feel tricked by a surprise line on the bill.

8. Say how tipping works at your place

Tipping norms differ widely. In the US, 92% of adults who eat at sit-down restaurants say they always or often leave a tip (Pew Research Center, 2023). Japan’s tourism board tells visitors “it’s not common to tip for services such as those provided in bars, cafes, restaurants, taxis, and hotels” (JNTO, checked 15 Oct 2026). A short line on the menu or bill (“service is included” or “tips are welcome, not expected”) saves an awkward moment at the end of the meal.

9. Give guests a way to call a waiter without waving

How to get a waiter’s attention differs by country: eye contact, a raised hand, calling out, a bell. Remove the guesswork. With WaiterPilot, guests tap to call a waiter or ask for the check on their phone, and the request shows on the staff floor screen.

10. Let guests ask questions in their own language

Most of what guests ask is the same: is it spicy, is it vegetarian, what comes with it. WaiterPilot’s chat answers these from your own menu in the language the guest writes in, and when the menu doesn’t cover something, it tells the guest to ask a staff member. Be clear on the scope:

If many of your guests speak Arabic, you can choose the dialect the chat uses: Jordanian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Gulf (Emirati), Saudi or Modern Standard Arabic.

11. Plan for notes your kitchen can’t read

Because notes aren’t translated, a Japanese guest’s “no onions” can arrive on the ticket in Japanese. Decide in advance what happens: the server checks at the table, or a staff phone with a translation app sits at the pass. Also print a one-page phrase card for staff with “allergy”, “no”, “without”, “spicy” and “vegetarian” in your top three languages.

12. Make the bill easy to read and to pay

Guests from abroad often want to split, and often pay by card. WaiterPilot shows a live bill, including tax and any service charge or gratuity you set, that guests can split evenly or by each phone’s share. When guests ask for the check, it asks cash or card, so the server brings the card machine. Payment happens separately, on your own terminal, so put the cards you accept on the table card or menu.

What does this look like at the table? An example at Casa Olivo

Casa Olivo is a fictional restaurant. This is an illustration written for this post, not a screenshot or a recorded conversation.

Table 4: a guest writes in Japanese. The buttons on her screen are in English; the chat replies in Japanese. (Japanese is not one of the languages we have tested so far, which are English, Arabic and Spanish; most other languages also work, so try the ones your guests use in a demo.)

Guest: ベジタリアン向けの料理はありますか？ (Do you have vegetarian dishes?)

WaiterPilot: はい。メニューによると、キノコのリゾットとマルゲリータピザには肉も魚も入っていません。 (Yes. According to the menu, the mushroom risotto and the margherita pizza contain no meat or fish.)

Guest: リゾットを一つ、玉ねぎ抜きでお願いします。 (One risotto, without onions, please.)

WaiterPilot: 付け合わせはパンとサラダ、どちらにしますか？ (Would you like bread or salad on the side?)

Guest: サラダで。 (Salad.)

WaiterPilot: キノコのリゾット1つ、サラダ付き、メモ「玉ねぎ抜き」。よろしければ Confirm を押してください。 (One mushroom risotto with salad, note “no onions”. Tap Confirm if that’s right.)

The kitchen ticket reads “Mushroom risotto ×1, Side: salad”, as on the menu, with the note “玉ねぎ抜き” as the request was taken, not translated. That’s point 11 in action: the server checks the note at the table before confirming.

Table 9: a guest writes in Arabic. His buttons are in Arabic.

Guest: هل يحتوي الدجاج المشوي على لحم خنزير؟ وهل اللحم حلال؟ (Does the grilled chicken contain pork? Is the meat halal?)

WaiterPilot: حسب قائمة المطعم، طبق الدجاج المشوي لا يحتوي على لحم الخنزير. أما بالنسبة للحلال، فيُرجى سؤال أحد الموظفين. (According to the restaurant’s menu, the grilled chicken contains no pork. For the halal question, please ask a member of staff.)

The menu says what’s in the dish; it doesn’t say how the meat was sourced, so the chat tells the guest to ask a person. The same applies to allergies: the chat can say what the menu lists, and staff decide.

The one-page version

Points 1 to 8 cost little more than an afternoon and a printer. Points 9 to 12 are where a tool helps. To see how WaiterPilot handles them, and its limits (no POS or printer link, no payment processing), read the multilingual ordering page or what an AI waiter is. For how chat ordering fits next to a QR menu, see the AI waiter page.

The practical next step

Try a sample order to see the flow from a guest’s phone to the staff board. It’s a simulation in your browser; no real order is placed.