Travel Storys Case Study

Overview

TravelStorys is an audio guide company that endeavors to make travel experiences rich and authentic. Through the free app, users can explore the most scenic and historic locations in the USA by listening to audio guides written by people who know the sites best.

Before Voices

Anyone that has ever gone on a tour with an audio guide knows that the voice can make or break the experience; it can’t be something that will make you fall asleep, nor can it be something that doesn’t fit the subject matter.

Christie Koriakin, Director of Audio Production at TravelStorys, says they consistently receive suggestions for guides from employees at national parks, tourism bureaus, campgrounds, non-profits, and more. With the TravelStorys team’s help, these experts write out the tour and Christie finds an appropriate narrator. Often, she encourages the specific organization to find someone to voice the guide, though they usually don’t have any professional experience.

If the tour sponsor wants someone more polished, it’s up to Christie to find a voice actor that will make the guide shine. Christie will either narrate the guide herself or search through their narrow talent pool to find someone, negotiate payment, train them on the specific guide, and edit their audio, which eats up a lot of time.

Recently, Christie was working on a project with a client that needed to be completed very quickly. With only amateur talent to choose from, the client couldn’t pick someone that would narrate the guide with the right conviction and personality. As the deadline approached, Christie knew that if they wanted to finish on time with a great narration, then they had to try a different method of choosing a voice actor.

Solution

Having worked with Voices once before on a project, Christie knew that Voices’s talent worked quickly, which gave her peace of mind that whoever they chose would send audio files by the deadline. With the world’s largest online database of professional voice actors, Christie was also sure they’d be able to find a voice that their client would be satisfied with.

Christie gave her account manager a specific vocal direction, and he quickly returned with more than 10 voices that fit the guide’s tone. From there on out, every decision had to be made swiftly, so she was thrilled that her client chose a talent almost immediately after she shared the list with them.

In less than two days, the talent they selected, Ethan Gabriel, delivered 26 polished audio files to Christie who was able to finish the project on time.

For Christie, Voices turned a stressful situation into a manageable one. The platform has since become part of her regular production schedule.

She has also come to appreciate the difference between an amateur’s read and a professional narrator’s read, which impresses clients who are looking for a stellar finished product. Looking ahead, Christie is planning to use Voices to dub future TravelStorys into several different languages to reach a diverse audience of explorers.

Top Outcomes

• Account manager provided more than 10 great talent to choose from
• Short turnaround – audio files delivered in less than two days
• Professional voice talent give audio guides a more polished sound
• Saves Christie about seven days of work
• Option for dubbing to new languages opens many doors for new audiences