GetYourGuide has announced a new initiative – Project Incredible – which sees the tours and activities provider take control of some of the tours it sells by specifically branding them as GetYourGuide.

It is the first brand extension since the business launched in 2009[see its TLabs Showcase from March 2010 here].

Today’s move, which it claims is an industry-first, will go live this August, launching in three cities. The plan is to have  100 tours across 15  destinations by 2019.

The tours will be “curated” from its existing line-up of tours and activities, and will be branded on the ground as GetYourGuide. The release talks about the guides getting special training, some of the tours having “special access” privileges and an improved check-in experience for participants.

Elsewhere, it is also launching a new brand identity, complete with a new tagline “Love  Where You’re Going” which replaces “Stay Curious”.

The double announcement from GetYourGuide continues to keep the tours and  activities sector front of mind, following the news this April about Booking Holdings buying FareHarbour and TripAdvisor buying Bokun.

Both these deals were B2B plays and will be used to supercharge the behemoths’ consumer presence and bring them into GetYourGuide’s arena. GetYourGuide has received some $170 million in funding according to its Crunchbase entry, the last tranche being a $75 million Series D last November.

An outlier in the conversations around “tours and activities” is  TUI Group – the largest travel firm in Europe which has recently talked up tours and activities as one of its areas of strategic growth.

It seems unlikely, based on what we know so far, that GetYourGuide having 100 branded tours and a new motto will have any material impact on the balance of power in tours and activities when there are players of such scale also involved.

The argument that the sector is still sufficiently large and fragmented to accommodate a myriad of businesses still holds, but when you have Booking, TripAdvisor, TUI – not forgetting Expedia and Ctrip – all interested and invested in the sector, consolidation is almost inevitable.