Tours and guided visits
A walking tour has no room, no screen and no desk. The group is spread over thirty metres, half of it cannot hear the guide at any moment, and it re-forms every two hours with a new set of languages. The guide speaks once into a microphone; every visitor reads or listens on the phone already in their pocket.
A guide at the front of a moving group reaches the six people nearest them. The twelve behind are reading a plaque, photographing a doorway or waiting for the lights. With the guide’s microphone feeding the captions, the back of the group reads what the front is hearing, in their own language, and nobody has to be shepherded into a huddle at every stop.
A museum or gallery talk is the same group standing still, with the same problem of a soft-spoken guide and a hard floor. A visitor briefing at a heritage site or a plant is the same group with hard hats on.
The kinds of tour and visit an operator runs, and what the translation does at each.
A city walk with a group spread along the street, the guide’s words reaching the back of the group in the languages it brought.
A soft-spoken guide, a hard floor and a group that cannot all stand at the front. Each visitor reads the talk on a phone, in their language.
Rooms where a group cannot gather in one place and a guide cannot raise their voice. The captions follow the group from room to room.
A visitor briefing at the gate in four languages, then the tour, with hard hats on and earphones in.
The guide at the front of the coach speaks into a phone; forty passengers read along on theirs, each in their own language.
A tasting explained once at each stop, read by a mixed group in the languages it chose at the first stop.
How it is done
The guide’s own phone.
No receivers to charge overnight.
A lapel microphone into the guide’s phone, which runs the session in a browser from a pocket or a belt clip.
On the ticket, the booking email and a sign at the start. Each visitor opens it and picks a language before the first stop.
The two hours the tour ran, in the languages the group used, are what the operator pays for. The next group starts the same way.
Nothing to carry, nothing to collect, no case of receivers to charge overnight.
A lapel or headset microphone into the guide’s own phone, which runs the session in a browser from a pocket or a belt clip.
On the booking confirmation, the ticket, a card handed out at the meeting point and a sign at the start. The group has it before the guide says a word.
Streets, buildings, the names of people in the stories and the words your city uses for its own things, entered once in the venue’s glossary and used on every tour after.
The captions travel over the visitors’ own data or the venue wifi. Walk the route once with the phone that will run it, and you know.
The ten o’clock group reads in Korean and French. The midday group reads in Portuguese and Spanish. The guide started and stopped the same session on the same phone, said the same things at the same corners, and did not count a single receiver in or out. Each group picked from the full list, and the operator is charged for the languages each group actually used, for the time the tour actually ran.
Visitors who would rather listen than read put in their own earphones and hear the spoken translation from the same link, eyes on the building rather than the screen.
Why SpanVoice
Usually hired receivers by the day, or a monthly plan for the guiding app.
The hours each tour runs, per language. A week with no tours costs nothing.
Often expires with the month.
Credit never expires. The quiet season does not waste what the busy one bought.
Often one channel per language, or a cap on languages per plan.
Any of the sixty, picked by each visitor, charged only for the ones the group used.
Often a per-participant charge, or a cap on receivers.
Four visitors or forty, the same price. Nothing per person.
Often a transmitter and a case of receivers to charge, count and clean.
Their own phone and a clip-on microphone.
Often a receiver on a lanyard, handed out and collected.
Their own phone, and their own earphones if they would rather listen.
Usually a guiding app built for one kind of tour.
A browser page that runs from a phone, built by people who run live sound, and a Windows desk app for the visitor centre with a desk.
Rarely stated.
Servers in Australia, Europe and the United States.
Compare it yourself: price a season of tours with any service you like.
If you find a similar service for less, tell us and we will look into it.
Worked out the way a tour operator would, per tour rather than per receiver. Captions are A$1.05 per hour, per language, at today’s rate in AUD. A language is only charged while somebody is listening in it.
Two hours, two languages in the group. 2 hours, 2 languages — A$4.20.
Four two-hour tours, three languages across the day. 8 hours, 3 languages — A$25.20.
One hour in the gallery. 1 hour, 1 language — A$1.05.
Thirty minutes at the gate for a mixed party. 0.5 hours, 4 languages — A$2.10.
Before the next tour
A route, a site or a museum with its own rules about phones? Tell us how your tours run.
Talk to usClip a microphone to your collar, hand out the link at the meeting point, and let the back of the group read along.
A$10 of free credit when you sign up, no credit card needed. Credit never expires — use it this week or next year.