Udi Nir, GetYourGuide
New to GetYourGuide, Udi Nir joined the Berlin company following stints at e-commerce companies including Instacart, ModCloth and eBay.
For our November theme, PhocusWire talks to technology heads on the challenges of their roles and the rapid pace of change in travel technology and distribution.
What emerging technologies do you think will have the biggest impact on your business in the next decade?
Everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence these days, and make no mistake, we’re excited by its potential too. It’s already transformed much of GetYourGuide’s approach to performance marketing.
Augmented and virtual reality are even more exciting for us, specifically: They’ll enable fundamental changes in the ways we engage with travelers before, during and after trips.
If you could talk to travel tech vendors, what is one thing you’d want to tell them?
The tours and activities sector remains extremely fragmented. If we’re going to bring it online and enable a seamless consumer experience, we need to work together, and that begins with the establishment of open technical standards with enterprise-grade robustness.
How have stints at e-commerce companies such as Instacart and ModCloth prepared you for the travel industry?
Each e-commerce marketplace brings its own unique challenges! I’m still learning the the dynamics of our travel marketplace and how they differ from fashion and grocery delivery (e.g., in customers’ purchasing patterns).
But there’s plenty of knowledge that’s proven transferable in my new role at GetYourGuide: From Instacart and ModCloth, I’ve come to understand how consumers connect with different products and brands, and how AI can be deployed to improve the shopping experience to improve the research and booking flow on GetYourGuide.
Lastly, I’ve grown an intimate appreciation of the positive impact marketplace models like ours can have on the supply side. Entrepreneurs and small businesses around the world depend on our technology for their businesses and livelihoods. I’m excited to meet more of GetYourGuide’s suppliers myself to hear their stories.
CEO Johannes Reck has said GetYourGuide is at “an inflection point for technology” - what does this mean to you?
Although we’ve been very successful at achieving global scale, we have only covered the very basics of the experience for our customers and suppliers. There's so much ahead of us: We focus on a small but crucial part of the traveler experience. Technology will be the key to realizing GetYourGuide’s full potential to address the entire journey - from inspiration through planning, to traveling, and then capturing and preserving holiday memories to last a lifetime.
There’s much discussion around how fragmented the tours and activities space is - but how does that present an opportunity for GetYourGuide?
The opportunity for GetYourGuide is one that marketplaces have addressed for millennia: to organize fragmented industries and help consumers make sense of them. The difference is that we’re not waiting for suppliers to catch up and develop their own technology; we’re building the marketplace for all of them: If I’m not mistaken, all $150 billion worth of them, by Phocuswright’s own numbers.
Beyond the sheer fragmentation of the market, what would you say is the biggest challenge is in moving tours and activities online?
Each traveler has his or her own motivations and expectations for every trip. Our challenge is matching the expectations of the traveler with our online offerings, which can be especially difficult for consumers making spontaneous decisions.
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We want to make sure people find the information and availability they’re looking for when they come to our site, and if they don’t know what they’re looking for, we want to point them in the right direction.
How have you helped past teams handle mergers and acquisitions as well as prep for IPOs, and how does that apply to what you hope to accomplish at GetYourGuide?
What I’ve learned from going through several IPOs, mergers and acquisitions is that although they are exciting events with important ramifications, they are not standalone goals; they are outcomes of company missions on even longer-term time horizons, and products of great company cultures where teams can grow professionally and do their best work.
So if such an event happens, my role will be to share the "why" behind it, and then help my teams continue to focus on connecting travelers with incredible experiences, and not get distracted. The stakes might get higher, but our shared mission will remain the same.
What's your view on big consumer brands (Apple, Amazon, Facebook) and their impact on travel going forward?
Any company with that kind of global reach has the potential to be a major force in any industry, and travel is no exception. Those companies are in a unique position to influence the behavior of literally billions of users, so there’s always the question of when one of these behemoths will "enter" markets like ours.
But ultimately, the more these companies focus on tours and activities, the more light it shines on the great product we’re building to address a massive market opportunity at GetYourGuide. We welcome the attention and the pressure!
Will there ever really be a seamless traveler experience?
We wouldn’t be in this business if we didn’t believe in the potential for an easy, seamless research and booking experience, and in our own ability to create one.
Technology in and of itself can’t be a force for good; it’s the intentions of the people building it and its effective application that can make it so.
Udi Nir
Perhaps most interesting at GetYourGuide is that the definition of "seamless" differs greatly for each traveler, from the ideation and planning to the conduction and what follows. Some users equate seamlessness with instant booking; others equate it with comprehensive information and a beautiful browsing experience. We’ll build for both, and everything in between.
Is the best relationship to have one being solid with your team or with your boss?
If you’ve created a tech culture to be proud of, these are one and the same: The shared focus should always be on what is best for the customer. But in the event that a team and a superior conflict on an issue, with the good of the company in mind, my support will go to the team.
Everybody would like to change something about what they do - what's yours?
I’d love to have a magic wand that would enable us to accelerate the process of talent development. As an engineer, developing a world-class engineering team is the one thing I can’t automate or sprint!
How can technology be a force for good on issues such as climate change and overtourism?
Technology in and of itself can’t be a force for good; it’s the intentions of the people building it and its effective application that can make it so.
To highlight what I mean: One of the tech tools we’ve built for our suppliers is the ability to offer tickets that are only valid within certain time windows. The Van Gogh Museum, a highly trafficked museum that is physically very small, applied our ticketing to better distribute its visitor traffic throughout opening hours, allocating availability to guide visitors away from midday peak times and toward the first and last hours of the day.
As a result, the museum has increased its physical capacity by 10%, while improving the experience for visitors.
Successful implementations like these are what drive me to build better, faster, more elegant, more intuitive technology. I’m confident that the dynamics of the global tourism industry will continue to guide me and my fellow technologists to do so.
Describe how you would persuade your boss to try a new, untested piece of technology in the business.
The key word here is "test." Our approach is to experiment, test and learn constantly. Some of those tests might manifest in features the user can see; others, like backend improvements, can only be felt.
As long as we remain objective and don’t overcommit to technologies in hopes of finding panaceas, we’ll learn as much or more from discovering what doesn’t work as much as from what does.
What are your thoughts on the Berlin startup scene?
This city has always been a playground for hackers and dreamers, but its reputation is maturing into that of a bona fide technology capital. I’ve found I’m far from alone in having moved here from a more "established’" hub. It seems new faces are joining us every day from London, San Francisco and around the world.
Silicon Valley’s capital has joined me across the pond, too. Companies like GoEuro, HomeToGo and N26 are pursuing ambitious visions, and are thinking far beyond Germany’s borders. The big funding rounds they’re raising from marquee investors reflect that thinking.
And, most importantly for me as a father of two young children, Berlin offers a high quality of life and vibrant culture at a reasonable price. I lived in the Bay Area for 15 years and started my family there, but I love the new home I’ve found in Berlin and the incredible new journey I’m on here. (My family is loving our European adventure, too!)