“We can now run our tours in multiple languages simultaneously, improving our operational efficiency as well as offering our guests more choices of tour times.”
– Melanie Rae, Administration Manager, Tekapo Star Gazing
Executive Overview
Tekapo Star Gazing is the only guided stargazing and hot pools experience in New Zealand. Located on Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie Country, the company operates tours combining “the stunning Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve with soul-warming hot pools.” The only tour experience of its kind, the company is seeing fast growth.
With tours operating nightly, tour guides educate visitors who use high-powered telescopes to view the southern skies. While visitors star gaze, guides deliver scientific facts in addition to stories of Maori mythology and legends attributed to celestial objects from various cultures.
The second part of the tour takes visitors into 38-degree hot pools as they lie back on floating hammocks to explore the wonders of the night skies.
Tekapo Star Gazing uses the HearMe tour guide system to improve their overall tour guide experience, offering tour guides and visitors multiple channels for live, simultaneous tours in various languages.
The HearMe tour guide system solved language barriers between guides and groups and eliminated the requirement for language-specific tour times. The company also gained efficiency, spending less time on administration by supporting a more inclusive visitor experience.
Business Challenges
Tekapo Star Gazing is proud of its mission, to take visitors on a “Journey of Discovery” to the limits of outer space exploring the amazing features of the southern skies.
Due to the allure of Tekapo Star Gazing’s tour experience, its only natural that tourists from all over the world would be interested in taking part in a unique experience – with many international travellers arriving from China.
The challenge the tour company ran into was efficiency. By limiting star gazing experiences to language-specific tour groups, it was difficult to manage daily activities. Tekapo Stargazing needed a solution that allowed foreign language guides to provide live translations that could be delivered simultaneously with the English tours.
Language-specific tours meant that visitors didn’t have the flexibility to manage their personal travel itineraries – restricted by limited options for tour times.
Solution
Tekapo Star Gazing purchased the HearMe Tour Guide System which supports up to 80 guides providing 80 different tours to their tour groups simultaneously. This solution provided staff with the opportunity to facilitate multi-language tours side by side, eliminating distractions for storytellers.
Storytellers, providing tour narration in English, have translators, each with a transmitter and head-worn microphone, running a synchronized multilingual tour narration alongside an English tour. To listen to stories in their selected language, guests wear headsets connected to wireless receivers. Foreign language translators communicate clearly with their groups, supporting the English narrative while maintaining a high Quality of Service.
“We now offer a multi-language service and allow our guests to use the system to translate to small groups in other languages that are not in our core offerings – recently we had a young German woman translate our tour for her family because English is not their first language.”
– Melanie Rae, Administration Manager, Tekapo Star Gazing
Key Outcomes
The HearMe Tour Guide System allowed Tekapo Star Gazing to be more efficient with their tours by providing foreign-speaking visitors with the same unique stargazing experience.
English and foreign language visitors are entertained by well-told stories about mythology and legends about celestial objects, as shared by different cultures around the world. Groups listen to engaging narratives side by side, without distractions or disruptions.
As a result, Tekapo Star Gazing is growing. New tours are in the planning stages, designed for school groups and astrophotography. The company is also planning the expansion of their language offerings.
These unique tours have garnered lots of extremely positive reviews, as the company climbs the ranks on TripAdvisor.
“Just a few of the key phrases used to describe our tour experience: Mind-blowing, incredible, out of this world, once in a lifetime, breathtaking, unbeatable! People especially love our entertaining tour content and lying in the hot pools with the stars above.”
– Melanie Rae, Administration Manager, Tekapo Star Gazing
Business Results
- New Multilingual Tour Experiences
- Enhanced Guest Experiences
- Increased Operational Efficiency
- Market Differentiation
Only AudioConexus: HearMe Tour Guide Systems
AudioConexus customers use an auxiliary input to offer live and pre-recorded group tour commentary and music. Tour guides can adapt interpretation to include prerecorded narration, music, and sound effects. HearMe tour guide systems enable companies to offer blended five-star tour entertainment while achieving consistency and higher levels of guest satisfaction.
If you’re an ambitious tour operator who wants to attract new customers and promote your competitive advantages, learn why a HearMe tour guide system is right for you.
