GetYourGuide

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GetYourGuide
GetYourGuide company logo.png
Type of site
Privately held company
FoundedJune 2008; 13 years ago (2008-06) in Zurich, Switzerland
Headquarters
Berlin
,
Germany
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
  • Johannes Reck
  • Tao Tao
  • Tobias Rein
  • Martin Sieber
  • Pascal Mathis
  • Jochen Mattes
Key peopleJohannes Reck (CEO), Tao Tao (COO)
IndustryTourism
ProductsTravel agency
Employees609 (Q4, 2021)
URLwww.getyourguide.com

GetYourGuide is a Berlin-based online travel agency and online marketplace for tour guides and excursions. It is accessible via website and mobile app for iOS and Android.[1][2][3]

GetYourGuide's sells tours and excursions, activities including cooking classes, and tickets to many tourist attractions.[4] It offers more than 40,000 products worldwide.[5]

History[]

The idea for GetYourGuide was conceived in 2007 by co-founders Johannes Reck and Tao Tao. When traveling to Beijing for a student conference with ETH MUN, they found navigating a foreign city as tourists to be difficult. Drawing on that experience, a business plan was developed for a peer-to-peer Internet platform that connected tourists with amateur guides. Later, it was expanded and refined to be an internet booking platform through which travelers could book professional tours and activities in major cities around the world.[6][7]

The company was initially funded by the founder's parents and relatives. As it grew, there was difficulty in raising capital, in part because the concept was new, information on the size and complexity of the market segment was scarce, and there was no business model or demonstrable path to success. While many European investors balked at the idea, American investors were attracted to the concept, because it represented what they felt to be a good business idea, with no competition.[6]

The business model for GetYourGuide stipulates that it does not offer its own tours or activities, but rather, acts as a mediator between customers and providers. The service is free for customers, but the provider of the tour has to pay GetYourGuide a percentage of its revenue. An online customer review system enables potential customers to assess the quality of tour providers. Additionally, GetYourGuide removes providers who consistently get bad reviews from its inventory.[6] [8] In January 2013, when GetYourGuide announced $14 million in Series A funding, one of the goals was to develop its mobile apps. In October, it launched apps for iOS and Android. The app could pull in info on more than 23,000 tours & activities from 2,200 global destinations then available on the GetYourGuide's platform, presenting them initially as a stack of thumbnails. The app is also able to detect the user's location, and make relevant suggestions.

In April 2013, GetYourGuide acquired Gidsy, which had also been developing mobile apps and had a team of 12 developers.[9][10][11]

As a spin-off of ETH, GetYourGuide was initially headquartered in Zurich. The new company relocated its headquarters in 2012 to Berlin, where office space was more affordable and readily available. The German capital was also one of the focal points of the still young European startup ecosystem. An office in Zurich was maintained primarily for engineering teams.

In October 2017, GetYourGuide opened a new engineering office in Zurich.[12]

In November 2017, GetYourGuide announced a $75 million Series D funding round raised to help support expansion in Asia and the Americas, and soon after, added traditional Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Mexican Spanish as supported languages for its global inventory. Earlier in the year, regional offices were opened in Hong Kong and Bangkok. These additions brought the total number of languages supported on GetYourGuide to 18.[13]

In August 2018, GetYourGuide began selling tours under its own brand name. The company mined its data on customer preferences from having sold 15 million tours since its founding nearly a decade ago. From that information, it developed standardized criteria for how to best run a tour. To be labeled a GetYourGuide tour, an operator must agree to follow its best practices regarding meeting points, check-in processes, starting times, duration, and other factors. In return, the retailer will send more customers the operator's way.[14]

In July 2018, Udi Nir was hired as chief technology officer. Nir previously was VP Engineering for Instacart and CTO of ModCloth.[15]

In September 2018, Sharon McCollam, formerly head of finance at consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, was appointed to the board of directors.[16]

In April 2019, GetYourGuide raised a $484 million investment from SoftBank Group. This infusion of capital raised its valuation above the $1 billion mark, making it a unicorn.[17]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, revenues fell 95%.[18] The company also went fully remote.[19]

Corporate information[]

Partnerships[]

GetYourGuide has ancillary revenue partnerships with hundreds of airlines, hotels, transportation networks and online publishers, through which those businesses' customers can directly access its global inventory of tours & activities.

Former[]

Current[]

Office locations[]

GetYourGuide headquarters from 2019 in Berlin

GetYourGuide maintains its headquarters in Berlin, and engineering offices in Zurich. 14 additional sales offices are maintained in: Sydney, Vienna, Paris, Hong Kong, Rome, Dubai, San Francisco, New York City, Bangkok, Cape Town, Barcelona, London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

Since 2012, GetYourGuide's corporate headquarters have been located in the former Goldpunkt shoe factory in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. Plans are underway for a 2019 move to a former electrical substation built in the 1920s in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. The renovated office will offer 11,700 m2 of floor space, with room for a headcount of 800.[28]

References[]

  1. ^ Jong, Alice (July 2017). "Travel Activities Market to Reach $183 Billion by 2020". Phocuswire.
  2. ^ Williams, Greg (15 Aug 2011). "Europe's hottest startup capitals: Berlin". Wired.
  3. ^ "RECK ON HOW GETYOURGUIDE IS MORE ENTERTAINMENT, LESS OTA AND WHY THE FUTURE BELONGS TO CONTENT CREATORS". Northstar Travel Group. 10 December 2019.
  4. ^ Kolodny, Lora (7 January 2013). "GetYourGuide Finds You Leisure Activities at Your Travel Destination". The Wall Street Journal.
  5. ^ Dill, Kathryn: "Up-And-Comers: Travel Guides". Forbes. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  6. ^ a b c Knoller, Rasso (October 19, 2018). "Zeig mir deine Welt" [Show me your world] (in German). Forum Magazine.
  7. ^ "AIMUN 2007". ETH Zurich. October 3, 2007.
  8. ^ "Jet Ski Rental Sharjah Mamzar Beach , alqubtan jet ski , Dubai , Ajman". alqubtaan.com.
  9. ^ Lomas, Natasha (October 9, 2013). "After Raising $14M In January, Travel Startup GetYourGuide Launches Its First Mobile Apps". TechCrunch.
  10. ^ Butcher, Mike (24 April 2013). "Deadpooling Gidsy Acquired By GetYourGuide In A Berlininsiders-deal". TechCrunch.
  11. ^ May, Kevin (April 24, 2013). "Done deal: GetYourGuide buys Gidsy". Phocuswire.
  12. ^ Imwinkelried, Daniel (October 31, 2017). "Zürich-Berlin hin und zurück". Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
  13. ^ Davies, Phil (30 November 2017). "GetYourGuide expands global language capabilities". .
  14. ^ O'Neill, Sean (June 18, 2018). "GetYourGuide Will Market Some Tours and Activities Under Its Own Brand". Skift.
  15. ^ Hurst, Aaron (1 August 2018). "GetYourGuide hire new CTO and engineering executives". Information Age.
  16. ^ "Frau McCollam bringt Touristen auf Touren" [Ms. McCollam tours tourists]. Handelszeitung (in German). October 22, 2018.
  17. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (16 May 2019). "GetYourGuide picks up $484M, passes 25M tickets sold through its tourism activity app". TechCrunch.
  18. ^ Parker, Jennifer Leigh (May 22, 2020). "Meet The Startup Aiming To Solve Overtourism". Forbes.
  19. ^ Panzarino, Matthew; Hinson, Joey (13 March 2020). "Three travel startups tell us how they're responding to the coronavirus crisis". TechCrunch.
  20. ^ "AIR BERLIN MIT NEUEN KOOPERATIONSPARTNERN". EUROPEAN-AVIATION.NET. December 3, 2016. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  21. ^ "GetYourGuide und TUI setzen ihre Kooperation fort". e-Commerce News. July 1, 2014. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  22. ^ Kotowski, Timo (September 14, 2018). "So will TUI zur führenden Plattform für Ausflüge werden". Faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  23. ^ May, Kevin (September 24, 2014). "Auf wiedersehen, GetYourGuide - TripAdvisor starts trimming suppliers of tours and activities". PhocusWire. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  24. ^ O'Neill, Sean (May 10, 2017). "GetYourGuide Gets a Tours Booking Boost With EasyJet Deal". Skift. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  25. ^ Garcia, Marisa (September 21, 2017). "KLM partners with GetYourGuide for mobile booking of tours and activities". PhocusWire. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  26. ^ "GETYOURGUIDE KOOPERIERT MIT INTERRAIL". Travelrail. May 22, 2018. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  27. ^ "Leonardo Hotels kooperieren mit Get Your Guide". BizTravel. November 30, 2017. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  28. ^ Bath, Dominik (March 9, 2018). "Get your Guide plant neuen Campus in Berlin". Berliner Morgenpost. Retrieved 2018-11-21.

External links[]

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