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English takes quite a beating in many forms, whether in the instructions we find in boxes of items we have purchased, on restaurant menus or official notices in towns and cities around the world. Indeed, it is frightening how poorly texts directed specifically at tourists tend to be. Whether the problems behind such horribly mistranslated texts stem from a lack of professionalism a simply a bad attitude towards the importance of proper translation is a matter for debate. Regardless, the proliferation of unintelligible English documents for international tourist consumption seems to be a common practice. Perhaps the availability and training of professional translators specialized in tourism will improve the situation, but only once the tourist industry finally takes note of intercultural sensitivities and decides to act aggressively. In this paper, I highlight the problems seen in actual cases and suggest changes that might deliver results in improving tourism texts.