One guide. One group. Every language.
Walking tours, curator talks, openings, and school groups — translated live into each visitor's own phone and earbuds, so you stop splitting the departure by nationality and stop renting a case of receivers.
Nothing to hand out, collect, or charge overnight · Pricing per language-hour
Two-page guides: guided tours & operators (PDF) · museums & attractions (PDF)
Whenever a real person is doing the talking.
Koine translates a live human voice. It is for the guide, the curator, and the host — not a replacement for the recorded audio-guide handsets that play a fixed script.
Walking, city, and site tours
Today a mixed-language group either gets split into separate departures, or everyone gets the tour in whichever language most of them share. One guide can now take the whole group and each visitor hears it in their own language, at their own volume, through their own earbuds.
- Fewer departures for the same number of visitors
- A language you don't have a guide for is still a language you can sell
Curator talks and exhibition tours
The programme that is hardest to translate is the one built around a person: a curator walking a new exhibition, an artist talk, a members' preview. Those run a handful of times and never justify booking interpreters, which is exactly why they stay monolingual.
School visits, openings, and launches
School groups arrive with a class that reads better than it listens, so captions on their phones do more than voice. Openings and launches want the room to feel like one event rather than a translated version of one — the same session serves both, and staff can put captions on a screen too, see captions & overlays.
Where it does not work
Every listener needs a phone, earbuds, and a working connection, which rules out cellars, tunnels, caves, and sites with no coverage — there is no offline mode, and we would rather say so now than on the day. Very loud settings need a headset mic on the guide, not a phone in a pocket. And a pre-recorded multilingual audio guide is a different product; Koine does not replace one.
Scan at the meeting point. That's the whole onboarding.
No app store detour at the start of a tour, no deposit, no passport left at a desk, no receiver to get back at the end. A code on a sign or a lanyard, a language chosen once, earbuds in.
- Works in a browser, and in the Koine app for visitors who want history and replay
- Voice, captions, or both — a noisy square is a reading problem, not a listening one
- Nothing to sanitize between departures
- They keep the transcript after the tour, in their language — see recordings & archive
The tour doesn't have to end at the exit.
A visitor who kept the transcript has your names, dates, and stories in their own language when they get home — which is where reviews and recommendations actually get written.
A transcript they can read again
Names of streets, artists, and dates are exactly what visitors forget by the evening, and exactly what a written record keeps.
Their own photos, in place
Visitors can drop photos and notes into the timeline as they go, so what they shot sits next to what was said about it — see the Koine app.
A page they can follow
Your operation gets a permanent address listing what's on and what's been published — see your page & followers.
A mic on the guide, a code on the sign.
Mic the guide
A clip-on or headset mic paired to the guide's own phone. No booth, no case, no separate operator.
Open the languages
Pick the languages on today's booking sheet — and add one when a group turns up speaking something else.
Show the code
On a lanyard, a sign at the meeting point, or the booking confirmation. Visitors scan and choose a language once.
Per language-hour, not per visitor.
A two-hour tour in four languages is eight language-hours. Group size never changes the price, so a full departure costs the same as a half-empty one.
Start free on part of a real tour — 15 minutes, no card. High-season volume and several routes at once are quoted through contact us. Full plan detail on pricing.
What would it cost your programme?
Group size never changes the price. Set the languages you want to offer and how much you guide in a week.
Estimate only. Final price is confirmed before you pay, and unused hours do not roll over.
Questions from operators.
What happens outdoors, where coverage is patchy?
It needs a live connection, so patchy coverage means patchy translation. On a route you run often, walk it once with the free session and you will know exactly where it drops. Underground and remote sites are honestly not a fit — there is no offline mode.
Do visitors have to install anything?
No. Scanning the code opens it in the browser. The Koine app is worth it for visitors who want their history, photos, and replay afterwards, but it is never a condition of joining the tour.
Can the guide keep talking naturally?
Yes — there is no turn-taking and no pausing for an interpreter. Translation runs a couple of seconds behind the voice, which is the trade for not stopping every sentence.
Does this replace our audio guide handsets?
No, and we would not sell it as that. A recorded audio guide plays a fixed script per exhibit. Koine translates a live person, which is the part of your programme that currently only exists in one language.
What about visitors who are hard of hearing?
The same session helps them: audio straight into their own earbuds at their own volume, or captions to read instead — see accessibility & assistive listening.