Smartphone app to help World Choir Games visitors

CINCINNATI - Choirs from across the world will soon flood Cincinnati streets with the sounds of music and there's a smartphone application to make sure participants have a smooth transition.

The countdown until the World Choir Games begins is almost at an end and local businesses and restaurants are ready.

"We're just staffing up and getting ready to roll out our best for the entire world," said Joel Gregorcyk, a chef at Palominos.

Palominos is just one of many local restaurants that is busy preparing for the World Choir Games. At Nicholson's, employees are studying different ways to say thank you and make the customers feel welcomed.

"We just wanted to make it as easy as possible for the guests visiting Cincinnati, to see what we've got and order, hopefully we can give them a great experience," said Jessica Alexoff, Marketing Manager for The Tavern Restaurant Group.

Those restaurants and several others are working with a company called Globili that uses smartphones to translate their menus into more than 50 different languages.

"Our hope is it will help them navigate the city and help them feel a little more comfortable in getting around also in helping the restaurants to manage them as they come in and are ordering from the menus," said Ran Mullins, co-CEO of Globili.

This is how the application works:

"What it does is we put a QR code or a number our menus at the bottom, it says need a translation? And anybody with a smart phone that has a QR scanner or anybody with texting capabilities on their phone can have the menu translated into whatever language they speak," said Alexoff.

To make sure the language barrier goes even smoother, there's a number system.

"We have developed a number system where we've assigned each menu item a different number so if the customer speaks a different language then the server all they need to do is point out which number they want and the server will know which item they're ordering," she said.

Overall, the goal is to make visitors from out of town feel comfortable and help those living in Cincinnati explore other cultures.

"A huge, huge event, first time in the United States and Cincinnati gets to host and it's just very exciting, good time to be in Cincinnati and live here," said Gregorcyk.