Booking.com CMO: FareHarbor Was a Smarter Buy Than GetYourGuide
Photo Credit: Booking.com CMO Pepijn Rijvers (center) and Skift executive editor Dennis Schaal speaking at Skift Forum Europe in Berlin Germany on April 26, 2018. Skift
Skift Take
Whether the price tag on GetYourGuide was too much for Booking to admit, the tours and activities platform is likely still viewed as a viable buy for someone but that notion won't do much to calm GetYourGuide's nerves in the meantime.
The tours and activities sector got some Earth-shattering news earlier this month when Booking Holdings announced it was acquiring experiences booking-software provider FareHarbor, likely one of the biggest deals in the space.
At Skift Forum Europe in Berlin on April 26, Booking.com CMO Pepijn Rijvers said he'll start to experiment with FareHarbor in the coming months and will waste no time bringing the company into Booking's fold.
Rijvers said Booking Holdings was attracted to FareHarbor's depth in the United States, which already includes about 5,000 tours and activities providers. "If you look at this experiences space, from a technology standpoint this is a very immature segment still," said Rijvers. "We think with this technology from FareHarbor we have a really well functioning platform."
But when asked why Booking bought FareHarbor to scale up instead of a company like GetYourGuide with a wider reach, Rijvers said Booking doesn't like the kind of value GetYourGuide c
