The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on the translation industry where international travel was suspended and meetings and conferences were cancelled. This resulted in a shift towards the use of multilingual online meetings and video conferencing as a means of communicating and holding work meetings. Apart from this, majority of the industries had to go online considering the introduction of the concept of staff and clients both, working-from-home and to facilitate business operations over such distances around the globe.

This is where Remote Simultaneous Interpretation came into play. Remote interpreting is usually available in the same way as onsite interpreting. The key difference is that neither the linguist nor any other participant of the conversation needs to be present in the same physical location. Hence, it acts as a bridge to reach new markets, as an opportunity to ease communication and as a way to diversify your audience despite the geographical barriers.

Since last year, many organizations, like the European Commission and United Nations have tested remote simultaneous interpretation and decided to adopt it in the long-term. According to the CSA survey, 64% of LSPs report an increase in demand for interpretation in the health sector while 59% report a higher demand from the life sciences, medical and pharmaceuticals sector. For instance at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, video interpreting appointments increased by 10 times post COVID-19.

Remote interpretation and participation is expected to boom in demand for interpretation services in the future, because they are more accessible and cost-effective which is an added benefit for small and medium organizations especially during the unprecedented pandemic era.