Whitney Plantation

Creative Services
Self-Guided Tours and Experiences
Hardware & Platforms
Mobile Apps
Financial Models

The museum’s leadership team reached out to Acoustiguide for help with the best kind of problem: visitation was soaring, and they were struggling to accommodate the bus loads of guests arriving each day. Their guide-led tour program was popular, but it also created strict limits on their visitor capacity. The museum engaged Acoustiguide to create a solution that would meet their growing demand and increase visitorship while still providing a profound and memorable experience. Together we developed a companion self-guided tour that achieved several specific visitor experience goals:

• Accommodate a rapidly growing attendance in an efficient and cost-effective way, without placing a burden on staff and tour guides
• Provide an alternative experience for visitors who preferred to tour independently or at a different pace
• Bring the plantation’s history to a broad international audience so that non-English language speakers may fully experience the site.
• Help understand the site in a meaningful way through the presentation of multiple perspectives and voices

Acoustiguide created a compelling audio tour that shares the narrative of a complex history spanning from the 1790s to the present and addresses a broad range of visitor needs:

• Delivered via mobile app and a fleet of onsite handheld devices, so technology is never a barrier
• Intuitive self-directed format allows visitors to explore independently and at their own pace, tailoring their visit to personal needs and interests
• Available in six languages: English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Mandarin
• Utilizes diverse perspectives: visitors hear from Executive Director Ashley Rogers, Director of Research Dr. Ibrahima Seck, multiple first-person accounts, and powerful oral testimonials from enslaved people, bringing history to life through authentic voices.

• Scalable solution accommodates both overall increased visitation and particular high-demand periods without burdening staffing and resources
• Variable tour formats and language translations help the museum meet the needs of their diverse audience
• Positive response to powerful multi-perspective approach by visitors; NY Times book critic Sebastian Modak noted:

“While walking its grounds I listened to an hourlong audio tour, which seemed to conjure ghosts and whispers… This museum tour of Black stories was not only a coincidental appendix to that book, but also testament to how aural narratives, for their ability to unfurl in your mind while you are taking in the world around you, can be far more than background. They can be all-consuming.”

Whitney Plantation demonstrates how a single strategic investment can solve multiple challenges simultaneously. The self-guided tour enabled the museum to scale for growing attendance, expand international access, honor diverse visitor preferences, and spotlight rare historical voices, all without adding staffing burden to their lean team. This project exemplifies how the right audio solution delivers compounding returns, an important consideration for resource-conscious nonprofits looking to make every dollar count.