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Abstract: Since the economic reform and opening to the outside world, more and more foreign visitors are coming to China. Therefore, it becomes all the more important to render the tourist materials well. Basing on Nida’s functional equivalence principle and some other translation theories , this paper treats the problem from two aspects: language and culture, and tries to give some rough suggestions. 1. Introduction With the rapid development of tourism, tourist materials are playing a more and more important role in tourism industry. There are many successful examples of English versions of tourist materials, however, some are not so satisfying and are in great need of being polished. This paper will make a brief analysis of the current problems in translating tourist materials and tries to give some rough suggestions. It also examines the issues from the following three perspectives: (1) tourism language and translation; (2) tourism culture and translation; (3) suggested methods for the translation of tourist materials. 2. Brief Introduction of the Translation of Tourist Material 2.1 Definition of Tourist Material Tourist materials, as referred here, are the various materials that introduce Chinese tourism industry and tourism resources to average tourists all around the world. They mainly include: books, pictures, albums, tour maps, postcards, slides, video TV shows, documentary films, videodisks, etc. The majority of readers of translated tourist materials are ordinary foreign tourists who may not know much about China. 2.2 Function of Tourist Material Tourist material is one of the categories of the texts. According to Newmark, texts have the function of expressive, informative and vocative and no text and few sentences are undiluted among them. A text tends to have one leading function with the other two as supplementary. For example, the main function of literary text is expressive, while “informative” and “vocative” serving as the supporting function. Then what is the main function of tourist material? It should be vocative. Because the purpose of tourist material is to draw visitors, to raise their interest of touring, at the same time to help them understand Chinese history and culture better. However, this purpose can only be obtained under the prerequisite of sufficient information. As readers all hope to get the relevant information and background knowledge of the tourist destination before makingT-INDENT: 20px">The translation of tourist materials is a kind of publicity translation, which belongs to the fourth category. The essence of it is that translators should attempt to produce the same effect on the target language readers as that is produced by the original on the source language readers. Because of the cultural differences between the west and the east, there is a discrepancy e introduction and publicity of tourism resources. Serving as a guide to tourists, it helps them to make choices and arrange travel activities. The ultimate purpose of tourist materials is to motivate them to come to China through the transmitted message. NT: 20px">3. Tourism Language and Translation (1) Tourist material is a kind of practical type of writing. In addition to its practicality, knowledge and conciseness of language, it is usually descriptive. As tourist material is for the specially designated readers, the intuitive effect of language must be taken into consideration. In other words, readers can get the image whil