The Importance of Foreign Language Skill in Business Communication

Abstract

The travel and tourism sector being one of the world’s largest industries, is exposed to the forces of change that are being brought about by ongoing developments in communication. Good communication in foreign language becomes important in today’s world due to the impact of globalization. The objective of this research is to examine the roles of foreign language in business communication and importance of foreign language skill. Interviews were done to collect the data in an effective way. The collected data were thematically analysed by focusing on the qualitative data. This study is based on the data collected from interviews with a sample of 10 employees in tourist offices related to French market in the region of Colombo. Thus, for this study, tourist offices of the French market were selected. The results indicate that there is a great demand for foreign language competencies in business communication and a successful employee should speak at least one foreign language. This study also suggests that the foreign language communication and the intercultural proficiency of those working in tourism should be developed. This requires trained professional teachers who have good language competencies at the same time. As the conclusion, this research pinpoints the fact that foreign language plays an important role both inside and outside the company