Gyde and Seek is a travel platform that doesn’t believe in travel as usual. I confirmed this in Mexico this summer after becoming addicted to the custom, socially conscious private tour company that operates in 20 plus cities internationally. If you haven’t tried it, you really should.
Paco is a former professional driver and chess player who is as at home in Mexico City’s ballet country scene as he is taking visitors to lucha libre. In colonial Puebla, Maria knows the best hidden spots for baroque dishes, like chiles en nogada, but her true passion is tacos árabe. Then there is Salvador, who will elucidate the Toltec ruins in Tula or the Aztec glyphs of Tepotzotlán but can also go deep on the blues of Chicago.
Her friends and travelers Vanessa Guibert Heitner, left, and Andrea Guthrie are co-founders of Gyde and … [+] Seek.
The company was co-founded by Vanessa Guibert Heitner, a veteran travel planner, and her friend Andrea Guthrie, a business strategist who grew up living around the world with her diplomat parents. Their idea was to connect discerning travelers directly with highly trained, energetic guides in each location but without large group experiences or cumbersome price padding. Gone are middlemen and layers like the onions of tour operators, adding costs, complexity and potential for disaster. Instead, you search for the aspects of a trip you want – culinary history, street art, nightlife, Jewish culture, etc. – and the Cyde and Seek matching algorithm will guide you. You then coordinate directly with that person, and the guide, who sets her or his own pricing, gets the lion’s share of the fee. It’s like Airbnb for people who show you the world.
After a very positive experience at Cyde and Seek in June, I booked two more Gydes for August. Mexico City is the company’s most popular destination and the platform really catered to my specific needs: one trip was a family graduation celebration for my son. Next was an extended family trip to the ancient pyramids at Teotihuacan, located 30 miles outside of Mexico City. The third was an all-day food trip to Puebla with three hungry teenage boys. In each case, the guides went beyond the usual cathedral ‘here we have a cathedral founded in 1548 built of limestone type tours’. All three guides were very engaging, very knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with, which is important. Maria, for example, showed us where and exactly how to eat those street tacos that she loves, and she let us know the best coffee, chocolate, molé and moleties, too. The tough teenage crowd had a blast and that’s the point: You’re on vacation, after all. You don’t want to be stuck in paradise with a wet rag all day. Someone like Maria lifts the whole trip.
Guibert Heitner and Guthrie believe that travel experiences should never feel cliché.
Guibert Heitner and Guthrie recently video chatted with me to talk about their company ethos, the challenges of pandemic travel and their hopes for the future.
What travel problem did you have to solve with Cyde and Seek?
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: I’ve been in the industry for a long time in a more traditional high-end type of operation. We were always looking for ways to represent a destination in ways that weren’t reductive or exploitative and didn’t detract from the culture. So, in the case of Argentina, where Andrea and I met and where we worked, we wanted to find a way to run tours that went beyond tango and steak. That meant finding people with unusual perspectives on everything from human rights and economics to fine and popular art; craft makers of all kinds, historians, scientists, sociologists – intelligent experts. I’m a former university professor, so the education of our guide was really important from the start.
Andrea Guthrie: We also wanted to provide a service that wasn’t as expensive as the big tour companies, like Abercrombie & Kent. This meant designing a technology platform to address the small pain points of most travel operators. So, we knew we wanted to eliminate the extra steps and multiple parties associated with a typical tour experience. The old model where you would call a travel agent, and they would contact a local office in Patagonia, and that office would contact a guide, and everyone takes a small piece of the profit, so the costs go up.
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: This not only raises the costs for consumers. It greatly reduces the reward for the guides. There is no value, and it takes those subtle opportunities to let a guide do his thing if, say, someone is coming to Rio and wants to see postmodern kinetic art.
People were connecting a day before a trip to say, ‘I’m coming to Mexico City and I want to photograph churches at night.’ The guide replied and said, ‘I’m also an architectural photographer. I’ll take you to six churches tomorrow night.’ If you were working with an agency, there’s no way you could arrange something that quickly.
You have about 400 leads. How do you choose them?
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: We traveled to most of the destinations ourselves to meet everyone, or we sent people from our team to meet them. We have strict criteria and we reject more than 80 percent of the people who want to be on the platform.
What does it take to be a Guide and Guide to Missing?
Andrea Guthrie: Experience, academic degrees, expertise – that’s first.
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: There is a threshold at the beginning. Can they back up what they promise? Whether they are a sommelier or an art history guide or a Jewish historian, do they have the credentials and the knowledge base? We interview them and spend time with them in person so we can, you know, smell them.
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: Smell them. No one likes bad-smelling guides. You want their English to be good. You want personality. You want enthusiasm, excitement, friendliness. You want people who won’t take three days to get back to you.
Andrea Guthrie: You want someone who will listen – not just to your questions but to your concerns, even read between the lines and figure out what makes a guest happy and comfortable. Being mindful – that’s what I need most.
These are not easy times for travel companies. How are things?
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: It was very difficult. We have been hit hard by the pandemic. We suffered a year’s worth of cancellations in a few weeks in 2020. Planes stopped flying. There was a cognitive dissonance for us – we were like, how can that be done?
We have ten new destinations ready to launch, including Peru, Croatia, Finland. The instructions are ready, the profiles are written. But we can’t send them because we’re waiting to see how the recovery goes, what’s happening with the Covid rates, the economy and all that.
Andrea Guthrie: We’re focusing on talent. We had a Swedish family who took their children out of school and traveled with Guide and Seek for a year. Four kids, 14 and under. We structured their experience and it was a real learning journey for the family. Regardless of how things turn out, we’re extremely proud of what we’ve built and the kinds of experiences our clients have.
Vanessa Guibert Heitner: So many people dream of traveling but many times the experience can be disappointing. You will get 60 percent of what you need if you are lucky. For us, the 100 percent goal is exceptional. A trip should never feel canned. A destination should never feel like a cliché. Sixty percent is not good enough.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Travelers generally get the best value when they plan more than three months in advance or less than a week or two weeks in advance.
Which is the best travel portal in India?
Top 10 Most Popular Travel Websites in India On the same subject : The US has told India that the Indian ship was used to divert fuel linked to Russia to New York.
- Do MyTrip. MakeMyTrip helps us with our travel plans and provides various services. …
- Goibibo. One of the largest hotel aggregators, they are also one of the largest airline ticket providers. …
- Paytm. …
- Cleartrip. …
- via. …
- Physician. …
- Thomas Cook. …
- Expedia.
Which is the largest travel agency in India? Which is the largest travel agency in India? Thomas Cook (India) Ltd is India’s Largest Travel agency based on total sales over the past year.
Who dominates the travel industry?
The United States is the largest travel market in the world, accounting for $2. On the same subject : Travel has returned, but that value still has a bumpy road ahead.1 trillion in 2019.
Who is more Expedia or booking com? The Booking.com brand is ranked #588 on the list of the Top 1000 Global Brands, as rated by Booking.com customers. Their current market cap is $97.57B. The Expedia Group brand is ranked #- on the list of the Top 1000 Global Brands, as rated by Expedia Group customers. Their current market cap is $24.34B.
How big is the travel agency industry?
The market size of the global online travel agency sector alone reached about 432 billion US dollars in 2020. On the same subject : Top 10 most popular movies and shows in Netflix history – millions of times watched. This number was expected to rise in 2021, as companies gradually recovered from the impact of of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
What is the largest travel corporation?
| Degree | Company | Sales (billions of USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expedia Group | $99 billion |
| 2 | Reservation Holdings | $92.7 billion |
| 3 | American Express Global Business Travel | $33.7 billion |
| 4 | Travel BCD | $27.1 billion |
Who is the biggest online travel agency?
Expedia has been providing travelers with access to flights, hotels and cars since the nineties and remains a strong competitor today. In fact, they are the largest travel agency in the world.
Who are Expedia’s competitors?
Expedia Group’s competitors include Booking.com, Airbnb, Tripadvisor, Carnival Corporation and Priceline.com.
Are Orbitz and Expedia the same? Expedia: More Options Expedia and Orbitz are part of the same company, but their two rewards programs are separate and have key differences. Both reward programs are free entry and have three levels, with membership status dependent on the number of bookings during the year.
WHO IS hotels com biggest competitor?
Hotels.com’s top 5 competitors in June 2022 are: booking.com, expedia.com, marriott.com, agoda.com, and more.
Who is Priceline’s competition?
Priceline.com’s competitors include Booking.com, Tripadvisor, SAP Concur, Expedia Group and CheapOair.
