Lets Go Punting: a multilingual audio tour app for the River Cam

Lets Go Punting takes visitors on punt tours along the River Cam, past some of Cambridge’s most famous colleges. With a growing number of tourists from China, they needed a way for every guest to hear the story of the river in their own language. We built a GPS-guided audio tour app for iPhone and Android in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, developed in just 8 weeks and launched in 2020.

The challenge

A punt guide can only tell the story in one language at a time, and many visitors from China were missing out on the history behind the buildings they were floating past. Lets Go Punting wanted every guest to get the full experience, at exactly the right moment on the river, without extra staff.

What we built

• Three languages. Guests choose English, Mandarin or Cantonese when they open the app.
• Audio that plays at the right place. Using your phone’s location, the app knows when you reach each landmark. Your phone vibrates to let you know a new audio story is ready.
• More facts and details. Each stop brings extra information about the historic buildings and backdrops of the university, so guests can explore at their own pace.
• Vouchers built in. Anyone who has booked a river tour redeems their voucher code inside the app. Everything is handled in one place.
• Works on any phone. If GPS isn’t available, guests can still play each stop manually.

Behind the scenes

The app is written in native code: Swift for iPhone and Kotlin for Android. It uses the phone’s built-in location services to trigger each landmark automatically, with a back end that manages the voucher scheme. Want the technical story? Read how we built a location-aware app for the River Cam.

The result

The app has been a big success with the Chinese tourists it was designed for, and it has helped Lets Go Punting increase the number of tours booked. Visitors now hear the history of Cambridge in their own language, right as they pass each landmark, and Lets Go Punting offers a premium experience without adding staff.

Project facts

• Client: Lets Go Punting, Cambridge
• Platforms: iOS and Android
• Languages: English, Mandarin, Cantonese
• Development time: 8 weeks
• Technology: Swift, Kotlin, GPS and location services, voucher back end
• Launched: 2020

Planning a tour, guide or location-based app? Talk to our team.