Twenty multilingual translators with voice recognition technology were put into use this week at the immigration desks of Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport in East China's Zhejiang Province.

The machine can recognize over 40 languages and  simple sentences can be translated in as little as three seconds. The process of interpreting a regular immigration inspection can take about three minutes.

In 2017, Hangzhou airport's immigration desk received 4.75 million inbound and outbound tourists. The number of tourists has thus far surged to 4.91 million this year, with more than 530,000 foreign visitors.

According to the airport, Hangzhou has received more foreign tourists since 2016, especially from non-English speaking countries such as Japan, South Korea and Russia.

"Immigration officers can hardly cope with the growing demand of more languages with the influx of non-English speaking tourists," said an immigration officer with the airport. "The multilingual translators can help provide better services for tourists from different countries."

The machines are expected to be used in more cities in Zhejiang in the near future.

(Cover: Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport. /VCG Photo)