Originals Guides: How do we grow Originals and create amazing experiences?

Ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes of an Originals experience? Below, we share 6 key factors that go into making Originals a success and reveal the teams behind the whole process.

Selecting the best experiences worldwide 

We offer more than 55,000 experiences around the world. Our ultimate goal with Originals is to select the best activities and provide our customers with the best experiences ever. 

Our Category Management team is very involved in this first step of the launch. Part of their mission is to identify which experiences should be chosen as potential Originals.

Jens Mannanal, Head of Day Trips and City Motorized Tours, gives us an overview of his mission at GetYourGuide:

“Our mission is to give the whole world access to truly incredible experiences. We want to augment people’s lives and connect them with cultures and communities around the globe. And for that goal we go miles in identifying, setting up and running Originals Experiences.”

Selecting top-notch experiences 

As you may already know, one of the most important, if not the most important target for Originals is customer satisfaction. We believe that customers deserve to be provided with the best services which is why we collaborate with customer-centric local partners. 

Tours and Operations Managers are involved in every step of the launch of an Originals experience and customer satisfaction is a huge part of their expertise. 

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In order to ensure best-in-class experiences, the Tours and Operations Managers keep a very close eye on Originals’ customer feedback. This way they ensure that we identify any pain points and act on it quickly with local partners. Local partners and guide input is also very crucial for us as you are the ones meeting customers on a daily basis. You’re truly the experts on the ground. This ongoing process enables us to constantly improve our experiences and that’s what makes Originals activities so incredible.

Creating the product

Once we’ve selected an activity and made sure that it will be a 5* experience, the product needs to be created. We want to make sure that we have a top-notch product description that will be super attractive and will provide all the needed information to avoid customer pain points.

In this crucial phase, 2 teams are involved: our amazing Sales Coordinators who take care of the creation and setup of the product, and the incredible Content Editing Department whose mission is to write the copy and select the most representative visuals.

Below, Content Editing Specialist Alison McMenemy explains the main goals are when writing copy for an Originals’ product and why she loves collaborating with Originals:

“Clarity for the customer is key. Our aim is not only to make the copy sound appealing but also to provide tangible information that makes Originals stand out on their own merit.Originals cover so many activity types now — from food tours to boat tours and everything in-between — that we gain so many learnings about what information the customer really needs for each type. It’s so rewarding to apply these learnings as we grow.”

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Providing travelers with a top-notch customer service

Although the teams work really hard on creating a copy that will provide travelers with all the information, there are still some cases when customers need to reach out to us and this is when our incredible Customer Service Team steps in. Some members of the customer service team are actually dedicated to Originals. This way we aim at making sure that travelers get an amazing experience at this stage of their journey.

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Creating an amazing brand

As you guides already know, branding is a crucial part of the Originals as it helps us enhance customer satisfaction. Our Brand team ensures that we provide high quality merchandising that reflects the Originals brand inspirations and remain consistent around the globe. 

For more info, check out this previous post that delves deeper into the Originals brand.

Coordinating internal teams

Many teams are involved in the Originals project. In order to make sure that we follow smooth and efficient processes, our lovely Originals Project Managers are here to help coordinate all teams.

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We spoke to Lillee Tissot, Originals Supply Project Manager, about why she loves being part of the Originals journey: 

“We work to connect Category Management, the local Tours and Operations Managers, Content Editing, Brand, and other key teams to help launch and maintain our Originals tours. Working daily with so many teams brings a lot of variety in the tasks we support. In a single day, we could work on branding jeeps for a desert safari in Dubai, coordinate free stroopwafels on a bike tour in Amsterdam, and help launch a new sailing cruise in Lisbon.”

In addition to all of these teams, many other teams are involved in the Originals process such as Destination Managers, Regional Managers, Localization team, Marketing team,… just to name a few. 

Of course, the steps above are just the beginning: local partners and tour guides then bring it to life on the ground and deliver incredible experiences to travelers.