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GetYourGuide

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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
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 100,000 products worldwide from more than 20,000 supply partners.[5]

History

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The idea for GetYourGuide was conceived in 2009 by co-founders Johannes Reck, Tao Tao, Martin Sieber, and Tobias Rein, who were classmates at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.[6] When traveling to Beijing, they found navigating a foreign city as tourists difficult. They developed a business plan for a peer-to-peer Internet platform that connected tourists with amateur guides. Later, the plan was expanded and refined to an internet booking platform for professional tours and activities.[7][8]

The company was then founded in 2009 in Zurich by the four students.[9] Initially, the company was funded by friends and family members.[10] The founders moved from Zurich to Berlin in 2013 to raise venture capital, but ended up getting a lot of their funding from American investors.[10] GetYourGuide raised US$170 million in funding over four funding rounds from 2009 to 2017.[11][12][13] Another $484 million was raised in a 2019 Series E round, valuing the company at $1 billion.[14] This was one of the largest-ever funding rounds for a European startup.[14] Then, in June 2023, GetYourGuide raised $194 million in venture capital, valuing the business at about $2 billion.[15]

In April 2013, GetYourGuide acquired Gidsy, which had also been developing mobile apps and had a team of 12 developers.[16] 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.[citation needed] In October 2017, GetYourGuide opened a new engineering office in Zurich.[17]

In November 2017, GetYourGuide announced a $75 million Series D funding round raised to help support expansion in Asia and the Americas.[18]

By 2017, GetYourGuide was not yet profitable, but was rapidly growing. It sold 5 million tickets that year, compared to 5 million since it was founded in 2008.[19] This grew to 25 million total tickets sold by 2019.[20] During parts of the COVID-19 pandemic GetYourGuide shut down activity booking.[21][22] After travel restrictions were lifted, activity on the site rebounded[21][22] GetYourGuide started selling activities in the United States in 2021.[23]

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.[24]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company shifted to remote work.[25]

Services

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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.[7] 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.[26]

GetYourGuide headquarters from 2019 in Berlin

References

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  1. ^ https://getyourguide.careers [bare URL]
  2. ^ a b 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. ^ Kelso, Stirling (March 19, 2024). "Wanna tour the McLaren Racing headquarters? This travel site could take you there". Fast Company. Retrieved May 31, 2024.
  6. ^ "Inside GetYourGuide: Germany's $2bn travel experiences platform". Sifted. Retrieved 2024-05-29.
  7. ^ a b Knoller, Rasso (October 19, 2018). "Zeig mir deine Welt" [Show me your world] (in German). Forum Magazine.
  8. ^ "AIMUN 2007". ETH Zurich. October 3, 2007.
  9. ^ Bath, Dominik (September 3, 2018). "Get your Guide plant neuen Campus in Berlin". Berliner Morgenpost (in German). Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  10. ^ a b "Zeig mir deine Welt". Forum (in German). October 19, 2018. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  11. ^ Kolodny, Lora (January 7, 2013). "GetYourGuide Finds You Leisure Activities at Your Travel Destination". WSJ. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  12. ^ Lomas, Natasha (July 31, 2014). "Holiday Events Booking Platform, GetYourGuide, Pulls In Another $25M To "Landgrab" New Markets". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  13. ^ Butcher, Mike (April 24, 2013). "Deadpooling Gidsy Acquired By GetYourGuide In A Berlin Insiders Deal". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  14. ^ a b Lunden, Ingrid (May 16, 2019). "GetYourGuide picks up $484M, passes 25M tickets sold through its tourism activity app". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  15. ^ Browne, Ryan (June 1, 2023). "TripAdvisor rival GetYourGuide nears $2 billion valuation as it raises fresh funds to invest in A.I." CNBC. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  16. ^ Butcher, Mike (24 April 2013). "Deadpooling Gidsy Acquired By GetYourGuide In A Berlininsiders-deal". TechCrunch.
  17. ^ Imwinkelried, Daniel (October 31, 2017). "Zürich-Berlin hin und zurück". Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
  18. ^ Davies, Phil (30 November 2017). "GetYourGuide expands global language capabilities". Travolution.
  19. ^ Lomas, Natasha (November 2, 2017). "Battery Ventures leads $75M Series D in travel tours app GetYourGuide". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  20. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (May 16, 2019). "GetYourGuide picks up $484M, passes 25M tickets sold through its tourism activity app". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  21. ^ a b Browne, Ryan (June 1, 2023). "TripAdvisor rival GetYourGuide nears $2 billion valuation as it raises fresh funds to invest in A.I." CNBC. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  22. ^ a b Lunden, Ingrid (June 1, 2023). "GetYourGuide books $194M at a $2B valuation with travel experiences back in business". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 24, 2024.
  23. ^ Kiesnoski, Kenneth (June 29, 2021). "Crypto-friendly travel site marks U.S. debut with dogecoin payment option". CNBC. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  24. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (16 May 2019). "GetYourGuide picks up $484M, passes 25M tickets sold through its tourism activity app". TechCrunch.
  25. ^ Panzarino, Matthew; Hinson, Joey (13 March 2020). "Three travel startups tell us how they're responding to the coronavirus crisis". TechCrunch.
  26. ^ O'Neill, Sean (June 18, 2018). "GetYourGuide Will Market Some Tours and Activities Under Its Own Brand". Skift.
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