{"id":8634,"date":"2026-09-27T01:02:58","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T01:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/global-travel-news\/vox-group-powers-tours-in-over-150-countries\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T01:02:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T01:02:58","slug":"vox-group-powers-tours-in-over-150-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/global-travel-news\/vox-group-powers-tours-in-over-150-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"Vox Group Powers Tours in Over 150 Countries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Vox<\/a>London, United Kingdom, September 27, 2026 \/ TRAVELINDEX \/ As founder Elio Epifani marks a quarter-century since building the device the tourism industry laughed at, Vox Group<\/a> marks 25 years of changing how groups travel, alongside a major update to its AI-powered guiding platform, Aura, now live in 200 languages.<\/p>\n

It Started with a Laugh<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2001, Elio Epifani was a tour director earning a thousand euros a day, the kind of money most people in the industry didn\u2019t walk away from. He walked away from it anyway, with a van and a box of radios, to solve a problem nobody had asked him to solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey laughed,\u201d Epifani recalls. \u201cTour operators told me I was crazy, why would anyone pay for a radio when the guide can just speak louder?\u201d The idea was simple: one guide, speaking once, heard clearly by an entire group. It took a booking at the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, where guides are not permitted to raise their voice at all, to prove the point. \u201cSuddenly nobody was laughing,\u201d he says. \u201cYou don\u2019t convince people with arguments; you convince them with a problem they can\u2019t solve any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty-five years on, that same radio link now operates in more than 150 countries, underpinning tours for cruise lines, tour operators, DMCs and destination experience partners around the world. What began as one man\u2019s answer to a problem the industry had simply learned to live with has grown into the guiding infrastructure much of the global travel industry now runs on.<\/p>\n

A Family Business That Went Global Without Losing Its Shape<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vox has done something most family businesses never manage: brought a second generation in without losing the culture the first generation built. \u201cI choose who comes into this business very carefully, and family is no exception,\u201d Epifani says. \u201cThe family members here started on the ground floor, packing boxes and radio sets, and worked their way up like everybody else. What they have that a new hire does not is time. You cannot teach that in a boardroom, you absorb it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That same instinct for culture over process has shaped how Vox has grown internationally. \u201cYou cannot send culture to another country in a document,\u201d Epifani explains. \u201cIt arrives with people. Culture is what happens when the boss leaves the room. If the standard does not drop a single inch when I am not there, we have done our job.\u201d<\/p>\n

A New Chapter, The \u201cGame-Changer\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vox\u2019s 25th year has brought its most significant product evolution yet. Aura, first introduced as a live translation device, now runs simultaneous translation in up to four languages at once from a library that has grown from 50 to 200, alongside live subtitles for guests who are deaf or hard of hearing and multiple parallel commentary channels for a single mixed group. Its AI companion gives guides verified answers to guests\u2019 questions in real time, drawing on operator-approved content rather than the open internet. It sits alongside Vox BT, a new Bluetooth accessory letting guests connect their own earbuds or hearing aids directly to a tour.<\/p>\n

For Epifani, the technology is judged by the same standard he applied to that first radio. \u201cIf the guest notices the technology, you\u2019ve failed,\u201d he says. \u201cIt should be like oxygen: essential, but invisible.\u201d Asked how that philosophy applies to AI, he is direct: \u201cThe point is not what the technology can do, it is what it should do for the business you are in. So we asked what gives a guide more, never what replaces them. A guide knows the subject better than any machine. What a guide cannot be is in four places at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Comes Next<\/strong><\/p>\n

Epifani is candid about what has changed most since 2001. \u201cBack then it was me, a van, and a box of radios,\u201d he says. \u201cNow there are people in many countries who wake up every morning and care about this company like it\u2019s theirs. That\u2019s the part I could never have imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, his prediction for the wider industry is blunt. \u201cIn five years, the companies that survive in travel won\u2019t be the ones with the best prices. They\u2019ll be the ones that own the guest experience end to end. Technology will decide who leads and who follows.\u201d Asked what he wants Vox to be known for in another 25 years, his answer is simple: \u201cThe company that proved technology and humanity aren\u2019t opposites. That you can build something global, innovative, and profitable, without losing your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vox Group is available now for cruise lines, tour operators, DMCs and destination experience partners.<\/p>\n

Vox technology is used across the travel industry, by tour operators, DMCs, cruise lines, museums, galleries, heritage sites, destination experience partners and many more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, United Kingdom, September 27, 2026 \/ TRAVELINDEX \/ As founder Elio Epifani marks a quarter-century since building the device the tourism industry laughed at, Vox Group marks 25 years of changing how groups travel, alongside a major update to its AI-powered guiding platform, Aura, now live in 200 languages. It Started with a Laugh …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2315,37,14,2316,1966],"class_list":["post-8634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-travel-news","tag-global-travelnews","tag-news","tag-travelindex","tag-travelindex-media-group","tag-untourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}