Establishing effective verbal communication with foreign tourists is one of the most important services required in the tourism industry, the quality of which depends not only on linguistic proficiency but also on the translator’s ability to convey concepts accurately and fluently. The present study was conducted to compare the performance of English translation students at the Higher Education Complex of Bam in providing written translation and interpreting services in the fields of tourism and hospitality. Since translation students become familiar with written translation skills throughout their studies, a specialized tourism interpreting course based on English for International Tourism by Peter Strutt was offered to assess and enhance their interpreting abilities. Before and after the course, eligible students took written translation and interpreting tests of equal difficulty, and their performance was compared. The results showed that, prior to specialized interpreting training, the students’ performance in written translation was 35% better than in interpreting; however, following the course, their interpreting performance improved by 28% compared with their initial test performance. The findings also showed that the students performed better in translating specialized hospitality terminology than tourism terminology, both in the written and interpreting components. These findings underscore the importance of targeted specialized interpreting training in translation degree programs and can contribute to enhancing translation skills, improving the ability to convey specialized texts, and revising curricula related to tourism and hospitality.