10 Highlights at GetYourGuide from 2019

As the confetti settles and we ring in the new year, we look back at the milestones and memorable learnings from 2019. We’d like to thank all our contributors who shared their stories on Inside GetYourGuide and look forward to publishing more news and insights in 2020.

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1. We raised our Series E-Funding

In May 2019, we announced our $484 million in Series E funding led by the SoftBank Vision Fund, with co-investors Temasek, Lakestar, and Heartcore Capital. At the Phocuswright Conference this year, Johannes Reck, CEO, sat down with Eric Gnock Fah, COO of Klook, an OTP startup that also received funding from Softbank, to discuss the future of the experiences sector.

2. We strengthened our leadership team

Last Spring, we welcomed Ameet Ranadive as our first-ever CPO and Nils Chrestin as CFO. Ameet comes to Berlin from Silicon Valley, where he led the product team at Instagram, and Nils joins us from his previous role as Group CFO at Global Fashion Group (GFG).

3. The GetYourGuide Awards 2019 winners were announced

We recognized the world’s best travel experiences with the second annual GetYourGuide Awards. Christine Stundner, PR Manager, published an article about how she pulled off this global search for the world’s best travel experiences, while Vincent Sim, senior destination manager, tells us how his selection team chose our winners.

4. We launched a Talent Acquisition Podcast

We were very excited to have launched Inside GetYourGuide’s monthly podcast, Talented. Our employee branding team interviews talent acquisition experts to discuss strategies and emerging trends in the talent attraction industry. Topics ranged from How to scale your tech team with engineer branding, to Sourcing to raise the bar.

5. We revealed the inner workings of our engineering team

As our platform, partners, and customer base grows, we want to take our readers along for the journey by explaining how we build our product, structure our teams, and stay innovative. Take a look behind the scenes:  

Engineering Manager Series

Our engineering principles

Career path for engineers

Associate engineering manager program

6.  Inna Skochko, technical sourcing manager, debunked myths about the role of sourcer

We’re happy to be one of the few companies in Berlin that have in-house sourcing roles. Inna Skochko fills in the knowledge gap about sourcers and tells us how these highly skilled strategic advisors are experts on converting candidates to hires.

7. Our destination managers tell us what it’s like working from our local offices around the world

Destination managers help travelers find the most incredible sights, museums, and activities around the world. Our DMs are based in local offices like New York, Dubai, and Tokyo, and are our direct link to partners who list their travel experiences on our platform. By basing themselves close to popular travel destinations, DMs are able to better understand the ecosystem, build stronger relationships with local suppliers, and better identify travelers’ needs.

8. Senior Data Engineer, Eugene Klyuchnikov, reveals how we scaled up our A/B testing

Adjusting to change is all a part of growing up, and that’s exactly what the data department did last year. Data Analyst, Dima Vecheruk, and Senior Data Engineer, Eugene Klyuchnikov, walked us through how he was able to scale up A/B testing without bogging down the whole data department. He shared how the data team managed to get teams to successfully run tests in self-service mode.

9. Julian Fichter, Head of HR Services, tells us why working in HR at GetYourGuide is unlike working in HR anywhere else

As the backbone of the company, HR Services handles our onboarding, relocation, immigration, payroll, and many other functions. But there’s more to this team than administration and organization. In the HR Team, Julian explains how we don’t just search for existing HR software on the market, we also build solutions ourselves by connecting our systems through APIs and writing applications to enable us to work better. Our goal is to make sure there’s never any double data entry for any information.

10. Ian Good, UX writer, gives a lesson on writing tips for localization

To make everyone feel at home when using GetYourGuide, we localize English content into 18 different languages, all of which have their own unique quirks and idiosyncrasies. Ian shares the five most important things to keep in mind when writing UX copy for localization.

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