GetYourGuide: How machine learning powers global fraud prevention

"As we scale, leveraging smart technology is increasingly important to support growth in our business and the experience economy as a whole."

Arjun Muralidharan

Group Product Manager, GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide recognised the pivotal role of automation and machine learning in its expansion. Given travel experiences are still a largely offline business, GetYourGuide is working to drive digitisation across the industry, helping its 16,000+ experience creators bring their offline businesses online.  

Arjun says, ‘’When you think about finding travel activities, many people still rely on hotel concierges or walking by kiosks when on holiday. Our app places an entire marketplace of things to do around the world right in the palm of your hand.’’

With an impressive array of over 75,000 activities available on their app, GetYourGuide continued to scale and adapt to the ever-changing market demands. 

As they grew and ventured into new markets, the challenge of keeping up with ever-evolving fraud trends emerged. Fraudsters, constantly innovating, required an equally agile approach to counter their tactics. Relying solely on static rules worked but wasn’t enough to keep up. Each market necessitated specific rules, demanding significant time and resources and hindering their ability to keep pace with fraudsters' expertise.

"Our static rules were sufficient, but it was difficult to make rules for all fraud cases. Deciding when to change rules and what to change them to was a lengthy and manual process."

Arjun Muralidharan

Group Product Manager, GetYourGuide

To help them combat fraud with the latest technology, GetYourGuide’s FinTech team sought out new solutions and turned to the power of ML with Adyen’s Protect. ML automated a sizable part of the process, giving them more time to focus on improving customer experiences and less time on creating static rules. It allowed them to swiftly adapt to complex and ever-changing fraud patterns and spend more time on specific fraud cases.

"The result of moving to ML was a higher acceptance rate and lower chargeback levels. This allows us to focus on what matters, better checkout and payments experiences for millions of customers."

Arjun Muralidharan

Group Product Manager, GetYourGuide

Unlike static rules, ML reduces the risk of blocking legitimate customers and accepting fraudsters. GetYourGuide experienced 18 times better accuracy using ML compared to static rules, blocking 6 times fewer non-fraudulent transactions.

Even though the overall results were positive, they realized that the initial performance varied across regions, some regions had better results, and some had insignificant increases in acceptance rates and no change in chargeback rates. 

Arjun continues, ‘’Luckily, using the Experiment feature in Adyen’s Protect, we performed A/B tests and reported all underperforming regions to Adyen. Doing so over the course of 2022, working together with Adyen, all underperforming regions had updated data models, and more time to mature, resulting in positive results for all regions by the end of 2022.’’

Their partnership with Adyen enabled GetYourGuide to fulfill their ambitions. Witnessing the continuous enhancement of Protect over the years, they activated it for all regions, achieving resounding success by mid-2023. Arjun says, ‘’As a user of Adyen’s Protect over the years, we have seen the evolution of this product over time, with continuous added value’’. A recent example of an addition to Protect is the new rule builder that helps users build risk rules while reducing manual effort.

Thanks to the positive performance results they experienced with Protect, they decided to activate it for all regions. Arjun adds, ‘’As soon as we came back to the office in January 2023, we couldn’t wait to turn ML live 100% for all regions, and as of the mid of 2023, we can look behind at all the work that went into the transition to say, it was a huge success.’’

GetYourGuide’s fraud and risk management strategy focuses more on letting good customers have great experiences via their platform. They call this customer enablement. Their fraud prevention strategy isn’t only about protecting themselves but also their suppliers, such as tour operators. By using ML to prevent fraud, they also reduce the risk of fraud impacting their suppliers.

"We believe that as ML in fraud and risk management matures and learns over time, that the ever elusive balance between letting customers in whilst blocking bad actors improves."

Arjun Muralidharan

Group Product Manager, GetYourGuide

Empowered by Adyen's cutting-edge technology that gives digital enterprises a competitive edge to support effortless online payments at scale, they embark on a journey of continuous innovation, promising memorable and worry-free experiences to travellers worldwide. Arjun says, ‘’Adyen sets a high standard. We have a shared mission of customer centricity. When it comes to global payments, Adyen’s approach to direct local payments, instead of being a connector to existing local payment providers, also sets it apart.”

"We appreciate Adyen’s willingness to be the first PSP to have offerings of new technologies and solutions."

Arjun Muralidharan

Group Product Manager, GetYourGuide

Fortified by Adyen's Protect in bolstering its fraud defenses, GetYourGuide is setting a new standard of excellence in the travel industry and presenting its travelers with exceptional and memorable experiences.