How SmartGuide helps ZOOs deliver AI-powered, multilingual, and personalized self-guided tours

Zoos are welcoming more visitors than ever, and with that comes a growing demand for richer storytelling, easy navigation, and content in multiple languages, making it increasingly challenging to meet expectations without stretching budgets. SmartGuide digital audio guide platform offers a simple way to guide visitors through zoos using their own phones—no extra hardware, no extra staff, and support for AI-powered, multi-lingual, and personalized self-guided tours. It helps share clear, engaging stories while keeping the pathways clutter-free.

Let's explore how SmartGuide can help your zoo offer a smoother, more engaging visit for everyone and why more and more attractions are choosing digital guides to meet modern visitor expectations.

Family enjoying a digital guide in a zoo

A smarter way to guide visitors through your zoo

Visitor expectations in zoos are rising quickly, yet traditional methods often fall short. Long paragraphs on signboards rarely hold attention, especially for younger visitors. Overcrowded panels block animal views, multilingual materials are limited, and hiring extra seasonal staff continues to be costly and unreliable. These hurdles lead to low engagement, low upsells, and lower overall revenues, and fewer chances to promote paid activities or special exhibits.

Reading a signboard in a zoo is boring

SmartGuide audio guide provides a practical way forward by turning each visitor’s phone into a personal guide for both indoor and outdoor areas. The app automatically leads visitors to key enclosures, plays clear stories about each animal in more than 30 languages, and even includes an AI assistant for on-the-spot questions. Outdoors, GPS highlights important areas, while indoors, QR codes, Bluetooth beacons, or NFC tags trigger the right story instantly. Offline maps and ready-made itineraries make navigation smooth for families and school groups.

A visitor scanning a QR code to play an audio guide

Audio-based learning helps visitors absorb three to four times more information than reading signs, all without staring at their screens. Children benefit most since they can watch animals closely while listening. Zoos can also enhance their guide with optional features like 3D AR animals, quizzes, videos, and kid-focused fun facts. A single smart QR code or beacon replaces bulky boards, reducing visual clutter and keeping exhibits clean.

Because everything runs through visitors’ own phones, there is no hardware to maintain, no handsets to repair, and no distribution lines for staff to manage. The entire system stays consistent in quality, scalable for any zoo size, and completely maintenance-free.

Easily digitize your zoo guide in SmartGuide

Creating a digital guide for your zoo takes only a few minutes thanks to SmartGuide’s intuitive web editor. You can upload text, photos, videos, and fun interactive elements, then build clear routes through your exhibits using smart route generation. Everything is designed for simplicity, giving your team full control without needing technical skills or external support.

SmartGuide automates the rest: text-to-speech instantly generates natural-sounding audio, while DeepL-powered translations unlock more than 30 languages with a single click. Updates are quick to make, publish instantly, and require no IT development. This means your guide can always stay fresh, accurate, and ready for visitors.

Easy-to-use content management system of SmartGuide digital audio guide platform

Guide visitors in 30+ languages using AI

SmartGuide makes it simple to offer multilingual content without slowing down your team. With one click, your guide can be translated into more than 30 languages, and AI-generated audio is created automatically. All machine-generated text is clearly marked, so your team always knows what was created by AI and what was reviewed manually. This enables zoos to serve international visitors efficiently, without requiring separate materials for each language.

To help you refine translations over time, SmartGuide provides detailed insights showing which languages visitors actually use. These reports make it easy to decide where human revisions are worth investing in. Each language version is also published online, helping your zoo appear in search results for international audiences and strengthening your multilingual SEO, making it easier for travelers to discover your site when planning their visit.

AI translations in SmartGuide digital audio guide

Start digitizing your zoo from just €48/month 

SmartGuide makes it simple and affordable for zoos to go digital with a starting price of just €48/month. The Essential Package gives your team everything needed to launch a professional digital visitor experience without technical effort. You can easily update your content through an intuitive content management system, offer guests a premium ad-free app, track performance through a visitor analytics dashboard, and ensure smooth use even in low-connectivity areas with offline access. Plus, you receive priority support and continuous app maintenance to keep everything running seamlessly. You can even sell your guide to cover costs and generate profit. 

The following plans include monthly fees based on your annual visitor volume:

• <10,000 visitors per year: €48/month
• <100,000 visitors per year: €95/month
• <500,000 visitors per year: €190/month
• <2 million visitors per year: €380/month

This ESSENTIAL Prime maintenance package also includes an AI tour planner, Priority support, or free content publishing.

SmartGuide also provides AR, precise visitor heatmaps, the Featured Attraction promotion, user messaging, or content embedding to the web, which are available in higher packages (or can be purchased as a single feature).

Enhance zoo adventures with AR, smart services, and custom maps

Augmented Reality (AR) gives your zoo the power to keep visitors engaged even when animals are resting, hiding, or temporarily off-display. While nothing can replace the excitement of seeing a live animal, an animated AR model helps bridge the gap by bringing the creature to life anytime. With some extra budget, you can offer AR experiences that reduce disappointment, add fun photo opportunities, and provide interactive learning moments—especially for kids who love exploring digital elements.

AR feature in SmartGuide

SmartGuide also supports a wide range of additional tools designed to modernize zoo operations and improve visitor satisfaction. From visitor heatmaps that help management understand foot traffic, to website integration for promoting your guides, touchscreen kiosks, and real-time notifications about feeding times or shows—SmartGuide gives your zoo everything it needs to stay visible and engaging. These extra services strengthen both operations and the visitor journey.

SmartGuide supports all your plans with extra services

To augment navigation further, SmartGuide digital audio guide allows you to add your own custom map layers for a more precise and personalized on-site experience. You can use vector maps, illustrated maps, or drone-based orthophotos, and SmartGuide will overlay routes, tours, and points of interest directly on top. While SmartGuide already uses OpenStreetMap—which is often more detailed for walking than Google Maps—your zoo can also switch between outdoor maps, satellite views, or a geolocated custom map prepared by a GIS expert. This ensures every visitor can explore your zoo with confidence and clarity.

Customs maps in SmartGuide digital audio guide

Case studies - Zoos and parks already using SmartGuide

Across zoos and nature parks, SmartGuide is solving common visitor challenges—ranging from outdated audio devices to hard-to-read signs and the need for multilingual content.

At Plzeň ZOO, visitors struggled with distant signage available only in one language or had to follow large group tours with small, hard-to-see pictures. SmartGuide solved this by letting them listen to animal stories in their own language while observing the animals up close. According to Kateřina Misíková, Marketing manager ZOO Plzeň: "We first tested the SmartGuide application in the Czech language and for the 2020 season we decided to add other language versions for visitors from foreign countries. This will make it easier for them to walk through the garden and learn information comfortably in their own language. Team SmartGuide was very professional and helpful in preparing the guide."

Visitors are struggling to read the signage in the Pilsen zoo. With SmartGuide, they can listen to stories about animals in their language while looking at animals.

Zoo Bratislava faced a similar issue: people came to watch animals, not read signs, and much of what happens behind the fence remained untold. This made it difficult for the zoo to share deeper stories or capture the interest of younger visitors. With SmartGuide, these hidden insights are now delivered through engaging audio narratives, allowing visitors to learn more while observing the animals. This approach helps the zoo communicate what happens out of sight and keeps tech-savvy youth more engaged without pulling their attention away from the animals.

Zoo Bratislava overcoming its challenges with SmartGuide digital audio guide

Beyond traditional zoos, SmartGuide has upgraded guides for parks and specialty attractions. Tropical Spice Garden in Penang previously relied on fragile, outdated audio devices that often broke. Switching to QR-based digital guides in seven languages allowed them to offer a smooth, modern, offline-capable experience. Kiwi Park needed a way to educate visitors without disturbing sensitive birds or hiring multilingual guides. Their team created a multilingual SmartGuide experience in just four weeks—now also discoverable by travelers browsing nearby destinations.

KIWI Park employing SmartGuide digital audio guide platform

For landscape-focused locations like Průhonice Park, SmartGuide helps maintain natural beauty by replacing physical information boards with a clean digital guide. Visitors can explore stories about the park’s landscape and historical sites directly in the app, allowing the environment to remain clean and visually pristine.

SmartGuide implementation in Průhonice Park

Together, these case studies show how SmartGuide boosts learning, accessibility, and visitor satisfaction across very different types of parks and zoos.

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Are you ready to join hundreds of attractions using SmartGuide?

SmartGuide is trusted by museums, parks, castles, gardens, and zoos around the world for delivering modern, engaging visitor adventures with minimal effort. It helps your team share stories clearly, reduce operational hassle, and meet the rising expectations of today’s guests.

Contact us to schedule a free intro call and we will show you how easily you can digitize your zoo.