What Is a Tour Guide System, and How Does It Work?

A tour guide system is any setup that carries one person's voice to a whole group, so the guide can speak at a normal volume and everyone still hears every word. You will also see it called an audio tour guide system, an audio guiding system or, in Europe, a whisper system, because the guide can practically whisper and still be understood at the back of the group.

There are two families of systems today: the classic radio sets, and newer systems that run on the phones people already carry.

The classic radio set

A traditional tour guide system has three parts:

• a transmitter with a microphone, worn by the guide,
• one receiver per guest, usually with a single earpiece,
• a charging case that stores and charges the whole set.

The transmitter sends the guide's voice over a short-range radio channel, and every receiver tuned to that channel plays it. It needs no mobile network, which is its biggest strength: it works in a cellar, in a remote valley or deep inside a thick-walled building.

The price of that independence is logistics. Somebody has to rent or buy the set, transport it, charge every unit, hand the receivers out, collect and count them at the end, and clean the earpieces before the next group. The group size is also capped by the number of receivers in the case.

The app-based system

An app-based tour guide system, often simply called a tour guide app or a smart tour guide system, replaces the hardware with the phones that guides and guests already own. The guide speaks into their phone; the audio travels over the mobile network or Wi-Fi to a server, and from there to every guest's phone in real time.

With MyGuide Live, for example, the guide creates an event and gets a QR code. Guests scan it and start listening in their browser, with their own earphones. They don't install an app and they don't register. When the tour ends, the guide closes the event.

What this removes is the device fleet: nothing to hand out, charge, disinfect or lose, and no limit set by how many receivers happen to be in the case. What it adds is a dependency: the guide and the guests need mobile data or Wi-Fi for the whole tour.

Which one fits which situation?

The honest rule of thumb: if the places you guide in have a usable mobile signal, an app-based system is cheaper and far less work. If they regularly don't, a radio set is the more reliable tool. We compare the two point by point on the comparison page.

What guests need

For a radio set: nothing, they are handed a receiver.

For an app-based system: a smartphone with an internet connection and, ideally, their own earphones. Any wired or Bluetooth pair works. The phone's speaker works too, but at a noisy site earphones make a big difference.

What it costs

Radio sets are typically rented for a daily fee per device, sometimes with a deposit and a delivery charge, or bought outright. App-based systems are usually priced per use. MyGuide Live charges one credit per participant per day, with no monthly fee, and credits don't expire. The current packages are on the pricing page.

If you want to see how it feels from the guide's side, the five steps of a tour take about two minutes to read.