When the baseball season in Boston's Fenway Park begins, Mark, the tour guide, starts to have a "rough time" - he leads a Japanese group to stand under the "green monster wall", and just after he finishes speaking in English, "This wall was built in 1934 and has blocked countless home runs", a tourist raises a camera and asks, "What does 'home run' mean in Japanese? Why is this wall green?" ; When transitioning to the pitcher's mound, the children in the Latino family group grabbed his sleeve and asked in Spanish, "Will the Red Sox pitcher practice here?" Mark could only slowly translate using a mobile phone translation app, which caused a delay of half an hour. On the day of the game, it was even worse. The cheers from the spectators drowned out everything. He held up a megaphone and shouted, "The first game of the 1912 opening season, the Red Sox won 5-3." The spectators in the back row didn't even catch "5-3," and finally, they could only take a photo around the century-old scoreboard and muttered, "It's still worth visiting Fenway Park."
As one of the oldest stadiums in Major League Baseball, Fenway Park receives over 3 million visitors each year, with nearly 40% being foreign visitors. For the guides here, the difficulties of their work are never just memorizing "1912 opening" or "17 home run record" - it's about how to truly "understand" the value of this stadium for foreign visitors with different languages and different knowledge of baseball - not just a casual look at the architecture, but getting "the tactical design behind the green monster wall," understanding the passion of Red Sox fans, and grasping why they have such a strong attachment to this place.
I.The "Three Challenges" for Fenway Park Guides: Multilingualism, Noise, Route, Missing Any One of Them Is Not Enough
Guides who have led tours at Fenway Park know that their work is different from that of museums or historical sites - there are no quiet exhibition halls, no fixed visiting order, and the tourists' questions are particularly "dispersed." Just relying on enthusiasm and memory is not enough; they have to overcome these three hurdles:
1. Multilingualism is not "translating words," it's about making tourists "understand baseball."
Among the foreign visitors at Fenway Park, Japanese, Latin American, and European tourists have different needs: Japanese tourists mostly understand baseball and want to know "Did the Red Sox play against the Yomiuri Giants?" "Which is harder to hit, the green monster wall or the outfield wall of Tokyo Dome?" Latin American tourists love baseball but don't speak English, and they can't even understand the terms like "pitcher's mound" and "home plate"; European tourists are often "visiting with their families," and they don't even know the rules of baseball. When the guide told them "The Red Sox won the World Series in 1918," the tourists immediately asked "Was it against Germany?" They made a joke. Another guide who led a Japanese group was asked "The green monster wall is 37 feet and 2 inches tall. How many meters is that? Is this height difficult or easy in baseball?" The guide wasn't prepared and had to look up the unit conversion on the spot, but couldn't explain the relationship between "height and tactics," and the tourists were not interested throughout.
So for the guides, multilingual service is not "translating 'home run' into a foreign language" - it's about combining the tourists' cultural background and baseball knowledge to explain the terms "easily." For example, when explaining "home run" to European tourists, one should say "It's like the 'hat-trick' in football, the most powerful scoring method in baseball"; when explaining the height of the "green monster wall" to Japanese tourists, one should compare it with "The outfield wall of Tokyo Dome is 1.2 meters higher, so hitting a home run here requires especially strong player skills" - only then will the tourists understand and be willing to ask more questions.
2. Telling stories clearly in the noise is more important than "shouting loudly"
The noise scenarios at Fenway Park are particularly special - it's not just "crowded and noisy": on non-game days, there are the "buzzing" sounds of lawn maintenance machines and the conversations of tourists; on game days, it's even more exaggerated. The fans' cheers, the on-site commentary, and the vendors' calls for hot dogs all mix together, with decibels reaching over 80. Traditional amplifiers simply don't work. The tour guide shouts until his voice is hoarse, but the tourists still have to stand close by to listen. If they are too far away, the content gets lost.
Tour guides all hope for a tool that can "filter out the noise" - without shouting, tourists can hear clearly when speaking normally. Whether it's the cheering during the game or the noise from the maintenance machine, it doesn't affect the explanation. After all, the tour guide's energy should be focused on "telling the story," not "who has a louder voice."
3. The visiting route is scattered, and the knowledge points are fragmented. They need to help tourists "connect the century's history"
The visiting route at Fenway Park is particularly scattered: from the "green monster wall" in the outfield, to the pitcher's mound and home plate in the infield, to the players' locker room underground and the baseball museum upstairs. Different areas are far apart, and the order has to be adjusted according to the flow of people. When the tour guide leads the group, it's easy for "the tourists in front have heard the explanation, but the ones behind haven't kept up," or "when visiting the museum, the tourists forget the baseball history they were just told."
A European family tourist commented: "We visited the locker room with the tour guide and learned that the jersey was used in 1931. Later, when we went to the museum and saw the old jerseys, we couldn't remember if this jersey was the original style. After visiting, we felt that each place was interesting, but we didn't understand the relationship between them and didn't know what happened in Fenway Park over the past hundred years."
For tour guides, they need to find ways to "connect the scattered knowledge points" - for example, when seeing the old baseball bat in the museum, they should relate it to "the owner of this bat hit a 'goodbye home run' in front of the 'green monster wall' in 1953"; when seeing the No. 34 jersey in the locker room, they should explain "this is in memory of Ted Williams, who threw 19 seasons of baseball on the pitcher's mound." But relying solely on speaking is easy to forget, and tourists can't remember it either. Tools are needed to help "connect" them.
The tour guides at Fenway Park gradually discovered that good tools are not "an added burden," but can help them do their jobs thoroughly - no longer worrying about "tourists not understanding," no longer shouting loudly, and being able to focus more on "telling the baseball story." Solutions like those made by Yingmi are particularly suitable for the scene at Fenway Park:
1. Make it possible for different tourists to "keep up with the rhythm"
Yingmi's multilingual sharing platform just solved the problem of "tourists not understanding" - it covers 5 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, and French. Japanese tourists can hear "the comparison between the 'green monster wall' and the Tokyo Dome," Latin American tourists can understand "the tactical significance of the pitcher's mound," and European tourists can understand "the World Series is not a football match." If there is a need for a small language like Portuguese or Korean, it can be customized in 72 hours without the tour guide having to look for a translator temporarily.
More considerate is "popularizing terms" - not stiff translations, but explaining them in a way that suits tourists' cognition. For example, when explaining "home run" to European tourists, the system would automatically say "similar to the 'hat-trick' in football, it is the most spectacular scoring method in baseball." When explaining to Japanese tourists the "height of the green monster wall", it is necessary to add that "it is 1.2 meters higher than the outfield wall of Tokyo Dome. Hitting a home run here is equivalent to hitting a 500-foot home run in Tokyo Dome." Yingmi had previously proposed a similar plan for the Tokyo Dome in Japan, and the local tour guide said, "The questions asked by the tourists were more in-depth. They were no longer just 'what is this?' but 'why was it designed this way'"
2. Even in the midst of noise, you can "hear every word"
Yingmi's digital noise reduction technology is extremely practical for the tour guides at Fenway Park - it can precisely filter out fan cheers, machine noises, and echoes. Even when the tour guide is speaking normally, tourists, even if they are standing on the first base viewing platform on game day, can clearly hear "Ted Williams' batting skills". Moreover, the equipment can "automatically adjust the volume": in a quiet museum, the volume will be lowered, not disturbing others; when it gets noisy in the outfield, the volume will automatically increase, without the need for the tour guide to manually adjust.
There is no need to worry about the signal - its wireless transmission technology can cover the entire Fenway Park, from the green monster wall in the outfield to the player passage underground, and the signal will not be interrupted. Even if the team is scattered across different viewing stands, such as when the front-row tourists are watching the home plate and the rear-row tourists are watching the green monster wall, within a distance of 200 meters, they can clearly hear the explanations. The tour guide at the New York Yankees Stadium used it before and said, "The signal interruption rate is less than 3%, which is much more reliable than the previous equipment."
The equipment design also meets the needs of the tour guides - it is a neck-mounted type, not handheld. When the tour guide leads the group, they can freely gesture "the pitching motion", and tourists taking photos or clapping will not be obstructed. The weight is only 18 grams, and wearing it for half a day will not cause pain in the ears, making it suitable for a 3-hour visit duration at Fenway Park.
3. Help tourists "remember the century-old stories"
Yingmi's zone-guided tour plan precisely solves the problem of "dispersed routes and fragmented knowledge points" - different areas use different explanation methods:
The outfield uses "automatic sensing", when tourists approach the green monster wall, the equipment will automatically play "This wall was built in 1934. Originally made of wood, it was replaced with concrete in 1947. The green color was to reduce sunlight reflection and help players judge the ball's trajectory", without the need for the tour guide to repeat it over and over;
The infield uses "wireless team explanation", the tour guide can supplement based on the on-site scene, such as when standing on the pitcher's mound, "This is 2 inches higher than other stadiums. It is the Red Sox's tactical advantage, allowing the pitcher to throw more precise pitches";
The museum uses "touch-screen explanation", tourists can click on the labels of the exhibits to listen to "This old jersey from 1918 was worn by the owner in 1953 and hit a 'Goodbye Home Run'. The opponent was the Yankees, and 35,000 fans cheered live". When seeing the 34th jersey, it will be explained "Ted Williams wore this jersey during 19 seasons on the pitcher's mound. When he retired in 1966, fans cried out his name". This way, tourists can connect "the green monster wall, the pitcher's mound, and the old jersey" into a line, remembering the century-old history of Fenway Park.
Conclusion: The core of the tour guide is to let tourists take "stories" away, not "photos"
The tour guides at Fenway Park often say that the charm of this stadium is not "old", but "with stories" - it is the home runs blocked by the green monster wall, the legend of Ted Williams, and the century-long bond between the fans and the team. Their job is to tell these stories to foreign tourists, so that when they leave, they carry with them "the passion of the Red Sox" in their hearts, rather than just the photos on their phones.
Solutions like Yingmi's actually help tour guides "better convey the stories" - no longer distracted by language, noise, or routes, but able to focus on "how to make it more vivid". For foreign tourists, such tour guide services are "worth it"; for tour guides, such work is "fulfilling".
In the end, the tour guide work at Fenway Park is not "showing tourists around", but "ensuring that people from different countries can fall in love with baseball culture". And good tools are the "good assistants" that help them achieve this goal.
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