Rethinking the live guide
Live guides can be costly, tricky to schedule and vary from one trip to the next. VoiceMap solves this with GPS-triggered audio commentary that plays automatically along the tour route. It's the same technology behind our walking tours, now trusted by bus operators, river cruises, harbour boats, scenic railways and tuk-tuk tours.
Two ways to deliver your audio tour
1.
On passengers' own devices. Passengers download your tour through the VoiceMap app on their own phones before setting off. From there, GPS handles the rest, playing each piece of commentary automatically as they reach a specific point on the route, with no buttons to press. Because the tour is downloaded in advance, it works entirely offline too, so there's no need for a data connection during the ride. No hardware to manage, no headsets to distribute. Passengers control their own volume and language, and the experience feels personal rather than a broadcast.
2.
Over your vehicle's PA system. A single device running the VoiceMap tour connects to your existing speaker system. Audio triggers automatically as you move through the route, adjusting naturally to your actual speed and stops without anyone needing to operate it. Your driver or captain can focus on the road, the water, or the track. A live guide can still be on board if you want one, freed up for interaction rather than narration.
Private tour distribution is available on our Pro and Premium plans, starting from $75 USD per month. For more information on our pricing plans, click
here.
Why operators are making the switch
Consistency: Every departure delivers the same high-quality commentary, regardless of who's working that day, what time it is, or how many trips they've already done that week. Live guides have good days and bad days. A VoiceMap tour does not.
Perfect timing: Audio triggers via GPS, so passengers only hear commentary relevant to what they're actually looking at. It adjusts naturally to traffic, tides, or conditions without any manual intervention. If your route regularly varies, you can build in alternative trigger points for different paths, and if you need to go completely off-script, locations can always be triggered manually. For longer stretches between stops, VoiceMap integrates with Apple Music, so you can fill the gaps with music that fades automatically when the next commentary begins.
Multilingual: Offer tours in multiple languages without recruiting or managing multilingual staff. Over a PA system, the whole group hears the same language. On personal devices, each passenger chooses their own.
Cost-effective at scale: Hiring and retaining expert guides is expensive. VoiceMap delivers a consistent, professional performance every trip.
Easy to update: If your route or attractions change, you update the tour, not a team of guides. You can easily amend the tour to factor in seasonal detours, new stops, temporary closures, with a couple of script and map changes.
Getting started
If you'd like to talk through how VoiceMap could work for your specific operation, routes, fleet size, seasonal patterns and all, we'd love to hear from you.
Contact us
Frequently Asked Questions
Only if you're delivering over personal devices. In that case, passengers use the VoiceMap app on their own phone, so we recommend they download it and the tour before departure. If you're running commentary over your PA system, there's nothing for passengers to download at all.
Yes. VoiceMap handles the narration, which frees up a live guide to focus on interacting with passengers rather than repeating the same commentary every trip.
You can build in alternative trigger points to cover different paths, and if you ever need to go off script, locations can be triggered manually. There's no need to record a whole new tour for every variation.
Yes. Over a PA system, the whole group hears one language at a time. On personal devices, each passenger picks their own, so you can serve a multilingual group without hiring multilingual staff.
No. Once it's set up, audio triggers automatically via GPS as you move through the route. Your driver or captain doesn't need to manage it, though manual triggering is there if you want it.
Private tour distribution is available on our Pro and Premium plans, from $75 USD per month. The right setup depends on your routes and fleet, so it's worth talking it through with us directly.
Bus tours, river cruises, harbour boats and scenic railways are all already running on VoiceMap. If your operation looks a bit different, get in touch. It's likely we can still make it work.
