More interesting moves in the tours and activities wing of the industry as GetYourGuide makes its first acquisition and snaps up fellow European startup Gidsy.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
The Berlin-based Gidsy, a marketplace for peer-to-peer experiences and things to do which launched in 2011 (TLabs here), will be integrated into the GYG system, a statement says.
The company has grown steadily since its initial unveiling, not least capturing the attention of Silicon Valley celeb Ashton Kutcher who joined the likes of Werner Vogels and Christophe Maire in a seed funding round in early-2012.
GYG secured a $14 million funding round from Spark Capital and Highland Capital Partners Europe in January this year.
The Gidsy site has already been shut down following the acquisition.
GetYourGuide CEO Johannes Reck says there are no plans to use the site again or the brand name "in any other way".
"We discussed the options and came to the mutual conclusion that we want to pull all of our weight behind GetYourGuide. Edial [Dekker, Gidsy CEO] and the team have amazing skills in design, social and mobile, which fit perfectly with the GetYourGuide strategy."
Dekker adds:
"We're psyched to join the GetYourGuide team. It’s a huge market, and joining forces will help us realize what we set out to do with Gidsy: bringing people together around activities."
The acquisition comes just two months after TUI Travel (a company GYG has a deal with in Germany) bought tours and activities online agency Isango for an undisclosed fee.
It also follows a number of partnerships and moves elsewhere over the course of the past six months which have shone a light on the fast-evolving sector.
In November last year, Expedia made a major push in to both B2C and B2B areas of a sector estimated be worth in the region of $100 billion annually.
The Expedia announcement was followed just a week later with tour giant Gray Line inking a deal with UK-based TourCMS to provide real-time availability and booking.
Travelport also ramped up its tours and activities offering using partnerships with Flextrip and AdventureLink.