Sycomore, a creator of multilingual, multimedia and audio experiences enhanced by intuitive digital and hardware solutions, has helped to give international audiences the royal treatment at Mary Queen of Scots’ Visitor Centre.
The company believes that international audiences should be able to visit cultural sites as independently as domestic tourists and works to create quality translations that ensure parity of experience for every single visitor. For this project, Sycomore partnered with Live Borders, the leisure, sport and cultural trust for the Scottish Borders, to produce a multilingual audio experience for the visitor centre in Jedburgh, Scotland.
Providing an engaging and accessible experience
The attraction sees a large number of visitors from overseas. In fact, before the pandemic, these guests made up 45% of the audience. Because Mary Queen of Scots led a fascinating but complicated life, with this project it was more important than ever that all visitors could access an easy-to-use and clear audio tour, adding another engaging element to the experience.
“Mary Queen of Scots has international appeal; she is a romantic and dramatic character from the past who continues to fascinate people,” says S. Sinclair of Live Borders. “By providing more options for visitors to engage fully with her story we will encourage more visits and give greater visitor satisfaction which can result in additional secondary spend in this free-for-entry attraction.”
Live Borders’ goals were to upgrade the audio tour kit in order to minimise running and repair costs, modernise the content of the tour to enhance the guest experience and provide more language options in order to boost usage of the tour from overseas visitors.
Visitors to the 16th-Century tower house can discover how Mary Queen of Scots spent a month in Jedburgh in 1566 during what would turn out to be a turning point in her life. The visitor centre is home to paintings, artefacts and textiles associated with her.
Sycomore created a rich audio experience that immerses visitors in the story of Scotland’s most famous monarch, complete with vivid sound design and expert narration. The experience was then translated into three other languages, while the team worked to ensure that the quality and clarity of the experience remained paramount across all languages. To achieve this, Sycomore turned to the skills of native language professional narrators, studios and producers.
The start of the attraction’s tour offer
“We very much see this as the start of our tour offering at Mary Queen of Scots’ House,” says Sinclair.
“Visitors using the new tour have said how much they enjoyed the tour and given useful insight into what might be our development path going forward. The translations in particular are going down well with both visitors and the translators who worked on the project very positive. We will develop more languages and options as budget and opportunity allows.”
“The voices are very clear, the company has obviously used trained, experienced native speakers,” adds Änne Russell, translator. “The background sounds make it more dramatic. I don’t usually use audio guides but I would definitely recommend this guide to visitors as it provides content in a dramatic, emotionally engaging way.
” It really offers an additional dimension; the exhibits themselves provide facts but the guide also engages on an emotional level – you “feel” Mary’s story. The device is smart, too.”
Because of the success of the audio guide, Live Borders are able to look at enhanced pricing and further enhance guest experiences. Going forward, it hopes to develop tours for school groups and families with young children, as well as a shorter highlights tour and a more in-depth exploration. For the organisation, this project is a first step to providing more options for visitor engagement, helping it to meet the interests and needs of its diverse audiences.
“We want to provide a memorable visit that will encourage visitors to enthuse about their experience at Mary Queen of Scots’ Visitor Centre,” says Sinclair. “Footfall and income generation are essential but we want to provide a quality experience that creates lasting memories for all.”
Sycomore also recently celebrated the fact that parent company Vox Group was awarded Service Provider of the Year – Technology at this year’s UKinbound Awards for Excellence.
