In the Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta, sunlight shines through the glass dome onto the bronze "Gamelan" musical instrument display cabinet. Australian tourist Lina frowned at the relief carvings on the instrument, while the audio guide on her phone only said "Javanese musical instruments from the 19th century", failing to clarify the meaning of the "Ramayana" story depicted in the relief; nearby, Middle Eastern tourists gathered around the miniature model of "Borobudur" and wanted to know "What Buddhist concepts are represented by the levels of the pagoda?", but they couldn't find an Arabic-speaking guide and could only take pictures of the model; more common was that when there were many people in the exhibition hall, the tour guide, using an ordinary audio guide, would say "This is an ancient Indonesian currency", but the voice was drowned out by the conversations of the tourists, and the people in the back couldn't hear clearly at all - this was the scene unfolding at this Southeast Asian civilization landmark museum every day.
As the most significant national museum in Indonesia, it receives over 1.5 million foreign tourists every year. However, "Understanding Indonesian civilization" has never been an easy task: the artifacts span prehistoric, Hindu-Buddhist, and Islamic periods, with complex cultural backgrounds; foreign tourists mostly come from all over the world, with diverse language needs; the exhibition hall space is compact and the flow of people is dense, with prominent noise and signal issues. Yingmi, who has been deeply involved in the audio guide industry for 15 years, did not follow the "single equipment coverage" approach. Instead, based on the characteristics of the museum's scene and the pain points of foreign tourists, she developed a comprehensive scene interpretation plan. Without specifying product models, relying on technical adaptation and in-depth content development, she helped the tour guides turn "visiting the exhibition" into "guiding tourists to read the civilization".
I. The "troubles" of the Indonesian National Museum tour guide, both foreign tourists and tour guides, are troubled by
I have met many local Indonesian tour guides who often say, "Taking a group to the National Museum is much more difficult than taking them to Bali." These tour guide problems are all tied to the "cultural attributes" and "space characteristics" of the museum, and cannot be solved by simply adding a translation:
1. "Not able to keep up with multiple languages", small language speakers can only "guess the meaning from the display"
The Indonesian National Museum has a particularly diverse group of foreign visitors: there are Middle Eastern visitors speaking Arabic, Asian families speaking Japanese, South American tourists speaking Portuguese, and Eastern European travelers speaking Russian. However, traditional tour guides mostly cover only English and Indonesian languages, often neglecting Chinese, Japanese, and even small languages like Arabic and Portuguese.
2. "Noise in the exhibition hall is disturbing", it's not easy to hear the explanation clearly
The exhibition halls of the Indonesian National Museum are mostly open spaces, and when the flow of people is dense, the noise from conversations, camera shutter sounds, and cabinet switches mixes together, making it particularly noisy. When a foreign tourist stands in front of the "Bronze Drum" display cabinet and wants to hear "the sacrificial significance of the drum surface patterns", the explanation from the neighboring tour group drifts over, making the content unclear; in the "Ancient Textiles" exhibition hall, when there are many people, the tour guide explains "the patterns on the fabric symbolize harvest", but the voice is drowned out, and tourists can only guess at the patterns.
Traditional tour guides either have tourists turn up the volume to the maximum, resulting in noise disturbing the people around; or have the tour guide shout - but in the compact exhibition hall, the tour guide's voice cannot travel more than 5 meters, and the scattered tourists cannot hear clearly, and it can easily affect other visitors.
3. "Signal is unstable", the viewing rhythm is always interrupted
The exhibition halls of the museum are mostly brick and stone structures, and some areas are underground, and mobile phone signals and traditional audio guides often "drop". When foreign tourists view the replica of "Java Ape Man fossils" in the underground exhibition hall, just as they heard "1 million years ago", the signal suddenly dropped; On the second floor, in the Islamic Cultural Relics Exhibition Hall, the signal was sometimes strong and sometimes weak. The section on "The Calligraphy Characteristics of the Quran Manuscripts" stopped halfway through and then the connection was restored. By the time the tourists reconnected, they had already forgotten the content that had been mentioned earlier.
An Australian travel agency conducted a survey, and they found that nearly 50% of the foreign tourists had experienced "signal disconnection". Among them, 30% missed the explanations and didn't even understand "Why is Indonesia called the 'Crossroads of Southeast Asian Civilizations'".
4. The content is "too superficial", missing the "cultural codes" behind the artifacts
The artifacts of the Indonesian National Museum contain too many "cultural details": the scale of the "Gamelan" instruments corresponds to the traditional calendar of Java, the relief of "Borobudur" records the routes of Buddhist spread, and the patterns on ancient currency reflect the different regimes of different periods - most traditional guided tours only mention these contents briefly, stopping at "artifact name + year".
Research found that only 15% of foreign tourists could know through traditional guided tours that "Indonesian ancient civilization was influenced by multiple cultures from India, China, and Arabia"; only 10% understood that "The patterns on 'batik cloth' each correspond to a specific ethnic group or ritual" - which means they didn't truly understand this "Southeast Asian Civilization Museum".
II. Yingmi's "Adaptation Plan": Follow the museum's scenes, no virtual stuff
Before making the plan for the Indonesian National Museum, Yingmi didn't rush to present technical parameters. Instead, she sent a team to the museum for a week - visiting the prehistoric exhibition hall, the Hindu-Buddhist exhibition hall, and the Islamic exhibition hall with tourists from different countries, noting down "where tourists frowned" "which part of the explanation was prone to being interrupted" "which questions tourists asked most frequently". The final plan was all based on these actual problems:
The exhibition hall space of the Indonesian National Museum is not large, and there are many tourists. Heavy and complex equipment would cause trouble. Yingmi recommended equipment that followed the "light and practical" route:
Self-guided tourists are suitable for the ear-mounted i7 automatic sensing explanation machine - weighing only 16 grams, it can be hung on the ear almost without feeling, and it doesn't interfere with looking at the display cabinet or taking photos of the artifacts when viewing the exhibition; moreover, it is non-intrusive ear-type design, hygienic and comfortable, and foreign tourists won't be afraid of "shared equipment being unhygienic". This device can also automatically sense and play "the correlation between the scale of the Gamelan instruments and the calendar" when approaching the "Gamelan instruments" section, and "the ethnic significance of the patterns" when approaching the "batik cloth" section, without having to manually press buttons, making the tour smooth.
Group tourists are suitable for the R8 wireless explanation system - the same ear-mounted design, the signal transmission range can reach 120 meters, even if the group is scattered in different corners of the exhibition hall, they can clearly hear the tour guide's explanation; it also supports independent multi-channel explanations, such as when two foreign groups are visiting at the same time, one uses channel 1 and the other uses channel 2, there will be no "interference", avoiding mutual interference.
If the museum has temporary special exhibitions, a MC200 multi-channel zone-based explanation system can be equipped - different channels are used for special exhibition areas and regular exhibition areas, and when tourists enter the special exhibition area, the content will automatically switch, without the tour guide repeatedly reminding "This is the special exhibition artifact".
III. Yingmi has thought of the "reliable details" that foreign customers care about in advance
After contacting many foreign customers, they choose the explanation plan not only for "good use", but also particularly value "compliance", "service response", and "after-sales guarantee" - after all, to be implemented in Indonesia, problems in these aspects can be very troublesome.
Yingmi can fully reassure the customers in this regard:
Case "Realistic": International customers all recognize Yingmi Yingmi has not been involved in serving Southeast Asian cultural projects for the first time - in 2019, they provided a tour guide plan for the Xiangkun Temple in Vientiane, Laos, and in 2021, they offered interpretation equipment to the Penang Museum in Malaysia. In Indonesia, apart from the museum in Yogyakarta, the cultural attractions on the island of Bali also adopted Yingmi's plan. There are also international giants like Huawei and Adidas, which often rent Yingmi's interpretation equipment for their activities in Indonesia. The quality is highly praised.
Just like a client from an Australian travel agency said: "Choosing Yingmi is not choosing the equipment, but choosing a partner who 'understands Indonesian culture and foreign tourists'. We don't have to waste effort teaching them how to adapt to the museum's environment, which saves a lot of trouble."
Conclusion: Let the "civilization stories" of Indonesian museums be understood by more foreign tourists
The charm of the Indonesian National Museum is not just "displaying 160,000 artifacts" - it is the "living history book" of Southeast Asian civilization, recording the cultural integration, belief changes, and life wisdom of Indonesia from prehistoric times to modern times. For foreign tourists, coming here is not to take a "photo with the bronze drum", but to want to know "what kind of life Indonesians had behind these artifacts and what kind of civilization they created".
Yingmi's interpretation plan does not have fancy functions; it just does these few things well - "explain the language clearly, make the sound audible, keep the signal stable, and make the content understandable". It is like a "local guide who understands Indonesian civilization", helping the tour guides lead foreign tourists' hands, gradually understanding the veins of Southeast Asian civilization in the traces of prehistoric artifacts, Hindu-Buddhist reliefs, and Islamic manuscripts.
For foreign clients, choosing such a plan is not only to enhance the tourist experience, but also to truly bring the value of "cross-cultural communication" to the Indonesian National Museum - after all, making more people understand the brilliance of different civilizations is what museums and interpretation plans should have the most significant meaning for.
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