The journey of City Sightseeing has led it to grow into 120 locations with 9 million passengers a year. Now, the leading hop-on-hop-off bus tour operator worldwide, City Sightseeing is mining data to make sure they provide the tours people want and to a standard that they expect.
“Our vision is more than just hop-on-hop-off buses. We want to be a one-stop shop to offer walking tours, boat tours, combination products, and our bus tours with an attraction and much more. We've also launched our amazing AI-powered app, which is adapting to the customer with live bus tracking facilities. The expectation for next year is to hit 10 million passengers,” says Charlotte Mander, City Sightseeing’s Senior Partnerships Manager.
How has GetYourGuide helped you achieve success so far?
GetYourGuide has given us access to a customer base we simply wouldn't have reached on our own. Their strong Google rankings and brand recognition have been instrumental in driving bookings our way, and that's made a real difference to our business. Honestly, GetYourGuide has become a core part of what we do. Without them, things would look very different today.
How does GetYourGuide help you overcome your main challenges?
One of the main challenges is new companies coming into the market and possibly running at a loss, just to gain market share and grow their new business. This has been quite an issue for us.
GetYourGuide has been a great partner in navigating this. The support and transparency we receive has been invaluable, and the data they provide allows us to take the right action at the right time, whether that's adjusting our pricing, running promotions, or creating new options within our product pages.
How else does GetYourGuide help you optimize your operation?
We've set up reporting for the customer service team so they can dig deeper into the data and identify ways to improve our review scores. With such a large product catalogue, tracking performance manually would be incredibly difficult, the report makes it manageable. Now we can clearly see where to focus: which operators need attention, and why. From there, we can dive into the actual reviews to spot common patterns, whether that's tour timing, where customers are waiting too long, or issues with the audio commentary, for example.
And in terms of shaping your customer experience?
GetYourGuide has also played a role in shaping our customer experience. The data and insights we receive help us identify the most-searched locations, which we feed directly into our destination development process to guide where we expand next. We also use the market intelligence available to us to spot gaps in demand, for example, whether there's appetite for a product or a combination, like a bus route paired with a local attraction, that isn't currently being met. When we identify those opportunities, we work with our local teams to see if we can make it happen.
How has digitization changed your business?
Digitization has been a huge game changer for us. Having live availability, mobile vouchers, and automated pricing — with all bookings feeding directly into our system — has transformed how we operate. When you consider that we run 120 locations globally, the scale of what that replaced is significant. Managing that volume with paper vouchers meant an enormous amount of administrative work, so the shift has made a real difference to our day-to-day efficiency.
Are you using reservation technology?
Yes. The reservation system is a company called Prioticket based in the Netherlands. Since connecting via the API, we now have a seamless booking and scanning process. It allows us, along with the reporting and the payments, to have a whole seamless approach across the board. So, not only for the customer experience when booking, pulling that availability, getting the mobile voucher, but for the team then scanning that voucher, and for us at the head office to get the payment through an automated payment system, and with the reporting as well. It's just ‘ease’ is the best word to describe it, we really like ease!
And do you have any more advice for operators looking to thrive in a digital-first world?
Plan rates and availability as far in advance as possible to ensure you have maximum potential for sales for future dates. A recent thing that we have decided to do for the first time this year is to have rates and availability for two years. We normally do one year at a time. Having it in two years is really exciting. We're then getting all those future bookings, where customers may be searching and planning. We know that different source markets plan further ahead, like the Australian and some of the US. Then, be open to trial and error. Not all ideas will work, but be open to trying them and taking feedback from the GetYourGuide team as much as you can because they have all the data in their hands.
How would you describe the guests you attract through GetYourGuide?
The majority of customers we attract through GetYourGuide are European, which makes sense given that's where our tours operate and where our brand is most established. We have seen a growing number of US customers over the last couple of years, but Europeans remain the majority.
Since moving online, we've also noticed a clear shift towards international visitors rather than locals, so our reach has definitely grown beyond our traditional customer base.
How does GetYourGuide compare to other OTAs you've worked with?
GetYourGuide is very open to trying new things, whether that's promotions, new products, or options we create exclusively for the platform. We test ideas, and if something isn't working, we move on and try something else. That willingness to experiment and adapt on both sides is what makes this partnership work, and it really shows in the results we've achieved together.
Key Takeaways:
- GetYourGuide’s reach has been key to City Sightseeing’s success.
- When trying to manage new competitor activity, GetYourGuide’s data helps inform how best to ensure that the operation thrives.
- Digitization has removed a lot of manual paperwork, and the GetYourGuide API is a key part of their processes
- Customer service reports allow the company to optimize their tours and maintain standards.
- To flourish in a digital-first world, plan your rates and availability as far ahead as you can to maximize booking potential.
