GetYourGuide

The idea for GetYourGuide was conceived of in 2008 by co-founders Johannes Reck and Tao Tao, who were college roommates attending the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.[6] 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.[7][8]

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.[9] 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.[10]

In November 2017, GetYourGuide announced a $75 million Series D funding round raised to help support expansion in Asia and the Americas.[11]

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.[12]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company shifted to remote work.[13]

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.[14]

• Official website