Two dolphins caged in captivity.

GetYourGuide: Guided Travel Tours, Tourist Attractions, and Animal Cruelty

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GetYourGuide, a global travel company based out of Berlin, offers guided tours and tickets to tourist attractions profiting from animal cruelty.

Based out of Berlin, Germany, GetYourGuide sells guided travel tours, tickets to tourist attractions, and excursions around the world. Boasting over 60,000 products in 150 countries, according to its website, the company offers a wide variety of travel experiences.

Unfortunately, some of those travel experiences involve animal cruelty.

What Is GetYourGuide?

GetYourGuide is similar to other travel companies such as Viator, a subsidiary of TripAdvisor, in that it encourages travelers to book activities online. GetYourGuide does not offer its own tours or activities, though it began selling tours under its own brand name in 2018. Its business model instead acts as a mediator between customers and providers, offering tickets, public and private tours, day trips, and transportation worldwide. 

GetYourGuide suppliers list their services on the platform, getting a commission on the sales, and the tour operators must agree to follow GetYourGuide’s best practices in order for the company to send more customers the operator’s way. The company boasts that GetYourGuide suppliers can earn $5,614 per month in the United States.

GetYourGuide relaunched its “Originals by GetYourGuide” in 2023, which focuses on experiences created in partnership with local operators that are exclusive to GetYourGuide. The company previously had “Originals” that launched in 2018, but was phased out in 2022.

When Was GetYourGuide Founded?

Founded in 2009 by classmates Johannes Reck, Tao Tao, Tobias Rein, Martin Sieber, Pascal Mathis, and Jochen Mattes, the experiences are “locally-vetted, expertly-curated experiences.” Johannes Reck is currently GetYourGuide’s CEO and Tao Tao is the company’s COO.

Who Are GetYourGuide’s Investors?

GetYourGuide was originally funded by the founder’s parents and relatives, but has since received funding from investors in order to expand into the Americas and Asia. In November 2017, GetYourGuide announced a $75 million funding round in an effort to support this expansion.

SoftBank Group, a Japanese multinational investment holding company focusing on technology that offers goods and services to customers, invested $484 million in GetYourGuide via its Vision Fund in April 2019. Temasek, Lakestar, and Heartcore Capital (formerly Sunstone Capital), and Swisscanto Invest supported the fundraising round through the Vision Fund.

Does GetYourGuide Support Animal Cruelty?

Unfortunately, GetYourGuide is currently supporting animal cruelty by selling venues that keep animals captive for entertainment. In fact, World Animal Protection’s 2024 report, Waves of Profit, found that GetYourGuide is currently one of six travel companies selling tickets to dolphin entertainment venues that purchase dolphins originating from the Taiji dolphin hunts.

GetYourGuide Reviews

World Animal Protection first reviewed GetYourGuide’s cruel animal entertainment experiences in 2023, when the company scored extremely poorly in our Tracking the Travel Industry report. While other companies, such as Airbnb (which currently has the strongest animal welfare policy of travel companies to date), have taken commendable measures to become wildlife-friendly, GetYourGuide is helping to sustain a demand for wildlife entertainment.

Fast Company listed GetYourGuide as one of the “Most Innovative Companies” in 2024, but supporting animal cruelty in 2024 is anything but innovative. 

Other reviews of GetYourGuide include:

  • “Not happy that get your guide [sic] felt it was appropriate to take us to a place where there is clear animal abuse happening towards elephants, unethical and given there [sic] attraction for tourist [sic] to use them I would of [sic] hoped they would have more integrity than allowing and giving money to a place such as Na Muang Waterfalls in Koh Samui Thailand, where the elephants are chained, in small enclosures, riding them is encouraged and they are swaying from side to side.. Sickening to see and I will be contacting the company.”
  • “Get your guide [sic] is a complete waste of your money. All they do is link you to your operators that [sic] you can source yourself at a much better price. We recently used them in Rome and Naples. We were charged a fortune for ‘skip the queue’ tickets that do not exist.”

  • “On our trip to Japan, we used GYG for 2 trips. One of those was excellent, and GYG responded to my positive review. However, our first experience was very negative and GYG never responded to that review, nor even to the email I sent before leaving the negative review. My basic takeaway is GYG responds when all is good, but ignores problems. This makes me very concerned about ever using them again because things don’t always go perfectly.”

According to Reviews.io, only 4% of reviewers recommend GetYourGuide. See the reviews.

GetYourGuide Tours and Venues

Tours and venues offered on GetYourGuide include the notorious Miami Seaquarium—a venue so cruel that the county of Miami-Dade recently terminated Miami Seaquarium’s lease due to animal welfare concerns.

Other companies profiting from animal suffering through GetYourGuide include SeaWorld San Antonio, which World Animal Protection investigators witnessed dolphins forced to beach themselves and breakdance for entertainment. SeaWorld was banned from capturing orcas from the wild in the 1970’s after decimating the Southern Resident population—whose pod is still having a hard time recovering.

Is GetYourGuide Worth Using?

Until GetYourGuide implements a global animal welfare policy and removes venues profiting from animal entertainment, such as SeaWorld, fake elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, and Miami Seaquarium, World Animal Protection is urging travelers to boycott GetYourGuide.

Urge GetYourGuide to Stop Selling Animal Cruelty

Both consumers and the travel industry have the power to stop the wild capture and exploitation of dolphins. In fact, 79 percent of consumers in a recent survey stated they would rather see a dolphin in the wild than in a captive environment, and 38 percent said they would avoid travel companies that profit from selling venues associated with animal cruelty. 

It’s up to us as consumers to boycott GetYourGuide until it removes cruel wildlife entertainment venues and implements a progressive animal welfare policy. 

World Animal Protection made it easy to contact GetYourGuide. Send a quick email to GetYourGuide now.

You can also contact them by calling their office, through their website, by sending snail mail, or on their social media accounts below. World Animal Protection urges you to be polite in your communications to GetYourGuide staffers.

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