Multilingual site for tour packages - structure advice?

dusting

I'm managing a travel agency site with a solid English version (.com), well-ranked, steady leads. Now we need to add Spanish, French, and Chinese. Small site - under 100 pages. The question is architecture. I don't fancy separate sites, but I know the Chinese market complicates things because of the Great Firewall. For Spanish and French, subdirectories seem straightforward - /es/, /fr/. But Chinese? Might need a separate domain to avoid scripts getting blocked. Any plugin recommendations? I remember Polylang from years back. Also thinking about hreflang and translating slugs. For Chinese, pinyin maybe. Has anyone built a custom plugin for a specific case? Claude could help. Thoughts?

isa-ecom

Honestly, there's no one-size-fits-all here, but the first thing you need to figure out is whether you're targeting Chinese speakers in China or abroad. If it's mainland China, a separate domain is basically non-negotiable - the technical setup has to be completely different. Slap a Chinese language version onto your existing .com and you'll likely find your whole domain or at least some crucial scripts get blocked by the Great Firewall. Ask me how I know. That's assuming you're not based in China yourself, of course.

For Spanish and French, it's far more straightforward - just stick /es/ and /fr/ subdirectories under your main .com domain and host the translated content there. Keeps everything clean for SEO and doesn't mess with your existing user flow. I haven't touched WordPress for international setups in ages, but Polylang was a solid plugin back when I did. If you're running something like Shopify or a custom stack, you've got a bit more flexibility - just make sure the switcher is obvious and doesn't tank your conversion rates. Tour packages are all about trust and seamless browsing, so don't underestimate how a clunky language toggle can kill your AOV.

neonlights

Subdirectory structure is the right move if you're protecting those existing rankings - consolidating domain authority directly impacts your activation rate from organic traffic. WPML works but the setup friction kills time-to-value, getting hreflang wrong means fragmented authority and slower growth. weglot handles the subdirectory setup, tags, and metadata translation automatically - cuts setup time dramatically for a 100-page site. Faster deployment means faster activation on the new language markets

marketingmule

i've dealt with this exact setup for a few travel brands, and honestly, the root + directory approach is the cleanest way to go. keep English on the root, then language subdirectories like /es/, /fr/, /zh/ etc. And yes - translate the slugs but stick to standard Latin characters. for Chinese, pinyin all the way.

hreflang is non-negotiable. also make sure your internal links between language versions are proper <a> tags, not just a flag image with no link. A simple "Español / Français / 中文" text block at the footer works.

Since it's a small site, I wouldn't over-engineer it. Grab the official hreflang docs, understand the logic, then get Claude to write you a custom plugin for your exact case. saves time and avoids the mess of generic SEO plugins.

dusting

Thanks. targeting Chinese tourists, both domestic and abroad, is a sound macro play. Cold outreach demands messaging that resonates culturally, not just linguistically

isa-ecom

Honestly, the China thing is a nightmare I've seen trip up even the savviest operators. One of my own clients had to spin out a completely separate Chinese site just to get it to load without getting blocked. We parked it on a .cn domain and stripped out every tracking script, pixel, and third-party service we normally rely on. It hurt a bit losing that data flow, but the alternative was zero reach over there. If you're serious about that market, be prepared for a completely isolated setup - no shortcuts.

marketingmule

Most of the international work I’ve done has been on react build and managed with custom code so I don’t have a good plug-in recommendation sorry.

That said I would decide how you want it to work and then have Claude build you a custom plug-in. It’s been pretty solid for me building things from the ground up and custom plug-ins that work exactly the way I want.