GetYourGuide acquires French tour operator

The Covid19 crisis has shaken up the tourism industry. Market participants who, despite the slump, are healthy at heart and have sufficient capital are using the time to prepare for growth in the post-pandemic world. GetYourGuide is one of these companies. The company secured €80 million in revolving credit facility financing in February. This RCF followed the €114 million convertible note GetYourGuide secured in October 2020 to ensure the Company could invest in strategic opportunities to build out its market-leading position and ignite post-pandemic travel demand.

Now the Swiss-German company has apparently found a strategic opportunity and acquired the French company Guidatours. This was reported by the industry portal Arival. On the GetYourGuide website, the former Guidatours already operates as "GetYourGuide France". According to the website, GetYourGuide France is the only agency in Versailles located within 5 min walk from the palace of Versailles and providing guided tours with priority access. 

The remarkable thing about the acquisition is that Guidatours is not a marketplace like GetYourGuide, but a tour operator that is one of the clients of so-called OTAs (Online Travel Agency) like GetYourGuide. The Swiss-German company is thus expanding its business model.  According to Arival, this could be the beginning of an attempt "to gain greater control over supply and build a vertically integrated tour and distribution brand".