A difficult place name may be doing more damage to destination discovery than travel marketers realise. New UK research commissioned by multimodal booking platform Omio suggests that 22% of British adults are less likely to visit a destination if they are unsure how to pronounce it, while 30% say they have avoided booking a destination they cannot confidently say aloud. Spelling creates another hurdle: unfamiliar letter combinations can make destinations harder to type, search for and ultimately discover.

That puts places such as Ljubljana (lyoo-BLYAH-nah), Reykjavik (RAKE-yah-vik) and Montjuïc (mon-zhwEEK) in an unusual position. The issue is not transport availability, price or even lack of inspiration. Sometimes the first piece of friction arrives before a traveller has opened a booking page.

When a name becomes travel friction

Omio’s findings point strongly toward social anxiety. Thirty percent of respondents worry that mispronouncing a place could sound rude, 26% fear embarrassment and 17% worry about being judged. Another 13% associate difficult-to-pronounce destinations with trips that may be more complicated or stressful to navigate.

That matters commercially as well as culturally. Twenty-six percent say they are less likely to talk to friends and family about a place they cannot pronounce, while 20% are more likely to stick with destinations whose names already feel familiar. For tourism boards and travel platforms trying to move travellers beyond Paris, Rome and Barcelona, that is a surprisingly basic discovery problem.

The encouraging part is that travellers do not appear content to remain inside that comfort zone. Omio says 85% want to improve their pronunciation before travelling. Yet only 13% turn to travel professionals for help. Instead, 42% use AI tools or search engines and 19% look to social platforms such as TikTok.

Omio turns pronunciation into a discovery tool

Omio has responded with an online pronunciation guide created with polyglot and language expert Alex Rawlings. The guide breaks down destination names and offers practical advice on stress, silent letters and common pronunciation patterns. Omio’s wider public guide also recommends technology, including AI and Google Translate, as a way to hear unfamiliar sounds before travelling.

Rawlings says:

“Pronunciation can feel like a barrier, but it doesn’t need to be perfect. The key is to focus on the sounds rather than trying to replicate every letter exactly. Breaking words into smaller parts and practising them slowly can make a big difference. Even a small effort is often appreciated by locals and can help travellers feel far more confident when exploring a new destination”.

Facundo Viguie Aleman, CMO at Omio, added:

“We believe travel should feel exciting and accessible, not intimidating. With so many incredible destinations reachable by train, bus, ferry or plane, we want to give people the confidence to explore beyond the obvious. We know that even small barriers, like unfamiliar place names, can make travel feel daunting, so pairing up with Alex to produce the guide will help keen travellers to discover new destinations with ease.”

It is a clever piece of travel utility because it sits unusually early in the customer journey. Omio is not simply helping someone compare a train with a flight; it is trying to remove hesitation at the moment a destination first enters consideration.

There are limits. The guide is most useful when confidence is the problem. Travellers needing broader translation, real-time language help or pronunciation support wherever they happen to be will probably still rely on general-purpose translation, navigation and AI tools. There is also one notable weakness in the research presentation: Omio’s UK announcement does not disclose the survey sample size or methodology, which would make its headline percentages easier to assess independently.

Travel platforms are fighting smaller frictions

Omio’s move fits a much bigger travel-tech shift: platforms increasingly compete not only on inventory and price, but on how much uncertainty they can remove before booking.

Booking.com has expanded AI features that let travellers search in natural language, ask property-specific questions and use an AI Trip Planner. Its research found that 41% of travellers were interested in personalised itineraries generated with AI.

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Expedia Group is pushing in the same direction. On July 31, 2026, it acquired AI-native trip-planning platform Layla, explicitly strengthening the journey from inspiration and discovery through planning and booking.

Pronunciation itself is also becoming a technology issue. In July 2026, Google Maps introduced improved pronunciation of Māori place names in New Zealand following collaboration with the Māori Language Commission, using advances in AI text-to-speech technology.

The real opportunity is confidence, not pronunciation

Omio’s pronunciation guide will not change how most people book travel, and it is not a substitute for a serious language tool. But that is almost beside the point.

The interesting signal is that travel platforms are moving upstream. Competitive advantage increasingly starts with removing tiny moments of doubt before someone has even chosen a destination: Can I say it? Can I find it? Will I understand how to get around?

Booking.com is attacking search complexity. Expedia is investing heavily in conversational trip planning. Google is improving how destinations sound once travellers are on the road. Omio is targeting an even earlier psychological barrier.

For destinations outside the usual tourist shortlist, that matters. Discovery is no longer only about being visible in search results. It is about being understandable, pronounceable and easy enough to imagine visiting.

And that may be the more important lesson from Omio’s research: the next battle in travel tech will not necessarily be won by adding another booking feature. Sometimes growth comes from identifying the tiny piece of friction everybody else assumed was too small to matter.