WeGoTrip rewrites the business model playbook: subscriptions up front, AI and attraction commission as dual loss leaders

The digital experience sector faces a growing challenge: long-term business model sustainability. With tools like Google Maps already offering free, voice-guided navigation to places like local ice cream shops—and with AI likely to enhance this into storytelling-rich experiences—the bar for charging consumers is rising.

As AI agents and assistants improve, they’ll increasingly deliver engaging, narrative-driven interactions. For consumers exploring cities or landmarks, this free AI-enhanced guidance may feel "good enough," especially for casual, non-commercial experiences.

That’s why the real innovation in this space may not be in technology, but in business models. With compelling content increasingly available at no cost, companies must rethink how to monetise. WeGoTrip’s answer is WeGoTrip Club—a new offering that bundles savings and content into a single, subscription-based proposition.

WeGoTrip Club

WeGoTrip Club costs consumers USD 25 a month and includes:

• 15% off tickets at over 2000 attractions
• Access to a library of 3,000+ audio tours
• Generate upto 3 AI tours on demand (per month)

In this model, audio tours are no longer the core product—they're a strategic incentive. By subsidising both content and commissions, WeGoTrip shifts the revenue driver to membership itself. It’s a smart play to extract remaining value from digital tours while repositioning around tangible savings.

WeGoTrip lays out their thinking behind this pricing model clearly in this post. It's a bold bet on a future where content is free, and loyalty is earned through utility.

Analysis

I love this approach. The key insight is that the real consumer draw isn’t the audio—it’s the discounts on attraction bookings. The idea that self-guided tours would eventually become free has been clear for a while, so turning them into a bundled bonus makes perfect sense.

The question is whether a “savings club” model is the right long-term fit.

For comparison, I’m a member of English Heritage in the UK — about $70 a year for unlimited access to 400+ historic sites. While it focuses on smaller, domestic historical attractions, it shows there’s a precedent for this kind of value-focused membership.

Overall, this is a smart move. It helps WeGoTrip transition from selling content to offering savings, building a more resilient model as digital content commoditises.

How can OTAs like GetYourGuide respond?

OTAs face a strategic dilemma as startups like WeGoTrip shift the game with club pricing and bundled AI experiences. They have three main options:

Lower attraction prices to match club rates
This seems unlikely — margins are already thin. But if consumers start realising that club memberships offer better value than OTA marketplaces, the pressure to respond will grow.

Introduce their own AI-driven experiences as a value-add
This could help OTAs compete on more than just price. But it's a tricky move, especially for players like GetYourGuide who have already de-emphasised or delisted digital experiences. Rebuilding that capability won’t be quick or easy.

Do nothing, and hope the model breaks
Some OTAs may bet that the dual-subsidy model — offering both AI content and discounts — won’t be sustainable. If startups can’t cover acquisition and tech costs, they may fail to scale. But that’s a risky, passive stance in a rapidly evolving space.

In short, standing still may not be a safe option for long.

Conclusion

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes that frame the moment:

"I believe that AI is moving us from an economy of selling copies of content to an economy of selling customized content. So we will see new or symbiotic business models in many industries."
— Alexander Golovaty, CEO of WeGoTrip (Chatting with us here at Cyborguide)

And from the other side of the table:

"To be totally honest, we're not looking too much at our rivals because GetYourGuide has been pioneering the space so much over the last decade-plus. There's been very little innovation in our space beyond the basics so far."
— Johannes Reck, CEO of GetYourGuide (Interview with PhocusWire May 2025)

The tension between these two perspectives is exactly why this space is about to get interesting.

From my perspective, the sheer pace of innovation right now—autonomous vehicles, eVTOL drones, humanoid robots, AI glasses, AI agents, AI assistants—is so intense I had to start this blog just to make sense of it all. Might be time for Johannes to subscribe to this blog.