GetYourGuide
Type of site
Privately held company
Available in24 (adding languages) languages
Founded2009 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
ProductsOnline marketplace
Employees700+ (Q1, 2023) [1]
URLwww.getyourguide.com

GetYourGuide is a Berlin-based startup[2] online marketplace for travel activities.[3] GetYourGuide sells tours and excursions, activities including cooking classes, and tickets to tourist attractions.[4] It offers more than 60,000 products worldwide in 150 countries, 22 languages, and 40 currencies.[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. 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.[6][7]

The company was initially funded by the founder's parents and relatives. 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.

In April 2013, GetYourGuide acquired Gidsy, which had also been developing mobile apps and had a team of 12 developers.[8] As a spin-off of ETH, GetYourGuide was initially headquartered in Zurich. The new company relocated its headquarters in 2012 to Berlin. An office in Zurich was maintained primarily for engineering teams. In October 2017, GetYourGuide opened a new engineering office in Zurich.[9]

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.[10]

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.[11]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company shifted to remote work.[12]

Services

Experience/tour providers list their service on the platform and the provider is charged a commission on the sales.[2] 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] 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.[13]

Office locations

GetYourGuide headquarters from 2019 in Berlin

GetYourGuide maintains its headquarters in Berlin, and engineering offices in Zurich.

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.[14]

References

  1. ↑ https://getyourguide.careers
  2. 1 2 Browne, Ryan (2023-06-01). "TripAdvisor rival GetYourGuide nears $2 billion valuation as it raises fresh funds to invest in A.I." CNBC. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  3. ↑ Williams, Greg (15 Aug 2011). "Europe's hottest startup capitals: Berlin". Wired.
  4. ↑ Kolodny, Lora (7 January 2013). "GetYourGuide Finds You Leisure Activities at Your Travel Destination". The Wall Street Journal.
  5. ↑ Schaal, Dennis: "Podcast: Viator Spinoff Pros and Cons". Skift. Retrieved February 18th, 2022.
  6. 1 2 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. ↑ Butcher, Mike (24 April 2013). "Deadpooling Gidsy Acquired By GetYourGuide In A Berlininsiders-deal". TechCrunch.
  9. ↑ Imwinkelried, Daniel (October 31, 2017). "Zürich-Berlin hin und zurück". Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
  10. ↑ Davies, Phil (30 November 2017). "GetYourGuide expands global language capabilities". Travolution.
  11. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (16 May 2019). "GetYourGuide picks up $484M, passes 25M tickets sold through its tourism activity app". TechCrunch.
  12. ↑ Panzarino, Matthew; Hinson, Joey (13 March 2020). "Three travel startups tell us how they're responding to the coronavirus crisis". TechCrunch.
  13. ↑ O'Neill, Sean (June 18, 2018). "GetYourGuide Will Market Some Tours and Activities Under Its Own Brand". Skift.
  14. ↑ Bath, Dominik (March 9, 2018). "Get your Guide plant neuen Campus in Berlin". Berliner Morgenpost. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
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