Known for delivering a quarter of a century of pioneering wilderness adventure on one of New Zealand’s most distinctive waterways, Dart River Jet has introduced the Kruse translation units to help those for whom English is not a strong first language.
The first units installed for Wilderness Jet trips offer information in Mandarin, Japanese and Spanish.
A small lanyard worn around the neck carries the audio unit which is triggered at key points throughout the trip and delivers essential background information via small, comfortable headphones.
“Travelling up the Dart River and walking among ancient beech forest is a journey with a large element of discovery covering flora, geology, history, contemporary stories and movie sites,” said Dart River Jet General Manager Clark Scott.
“For someone whose first language isn’t English, understanding the commentary can be challenging if not impossible.
“We’re very excited to offer this service as we’re seeing growing diversification and consistent growth in the independent traveller market from these countries and others.
“They’re not travelling with a tour leader or translater so the information is designed to ‘fill in the gaps’ with interesting and essential background knowledge that enhances rather than takes over from our hugely knowledgeable guides.
“When people really understand the significance of what they’re looking at or what they’re being told, obviously that makes a huge difference to their enjoyment of the trip and that’s what we aim to achieve.”
The Krust translation units carry over 30 pieces of interpretation on the Backroad and Forest tours alone, a key area the commentary is delivering on. Dart River Jet plans to add German, French and Korean translation units in the New Year.
Mr Scott said feedback so far from customer trials on the units had been “fantastic”.
Japanese passenger Nina Doko recently did the Dart Wilderness Jet Tour with her partner Takehisa Ueda.
“The Kruse system was really impressive, giving us a lot of information with perfect timing and without any noise,” she said.
“We’ve never experienced such a clear, high-quality and comprehensive audio guiding system; it was perfect.
“I’d highly recommend it for anyone from Japan or any of the other countries with commentary in their own language.”
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