Foreign Perspectives

Most of the time we just take it for granted that American is pretty much the same as English and at least that we know the differences (color not colour, check not cheque, etc.) but some differences in interpretation can cause problems.

The main problem we have is with our pickup and dropoff service. This is a service that we offer for the likes of walkers who frequently arrive at the airport or rail station without cars but who’d like to start their walking in our area (it’s very popular for that).

Most of the time our guests are couples and we’ve only once had a family arrive wanting a pickup. Therefore we don’t need to get a minibus or similar and can easily do the pickups and dropoffs in our car, sometimes with the aid of the trailer for the luggage.

Critically, from the American perspective, it isn’t a “shuttle service” and we never use that phrase in any of our marketing because we’re just not setup to offer such a thing. Yet, consistently, the Americans read “pickup/dropoff service” as “shuttle service” and thereby have an expectation of its capability that we just aren’t equipped to fulfil.

For instance, a few weeks ago, despite several e-mail exchanges a large group arrived wanting to book the shuttle bus for the nine of them. Earlier, we had one couple who wanted to catch the shuttle to and from the city every day and, were none too pleased when we weren’t able to collect them from the town a couple of times during their stay.