Antwerp, 20 November 2023 – European media group Mediahuis is acquiring Belgium-based RouteYou. RouteYou is a navigation platform for discovering, planning and sharing routes optimised for outdoor activities such as hiking, walking and cycling.
In recent years, there has been a surge in hiking and cycling as a healthy pastime. The market of recreational cycling and hiking navigation applications is therefore growing all the time, and Belgium’s RouteYou, founded in 2005, is one of the pioneers in this. RouteYou’s platforms inspire millions of hikers, cyclists and other sports enthusiasts to plan and discover routes and help with their online experience and navigation. Routes can be customised based on individual preferences such as distance, landscape, terrain and points of interest, and the platform offers the opportunity to share experiences with fellow users. Today, RouteYou boasts more than 7 million routes created by an active community of 15 million unique visitors a year.
With the acquisition, Mediahuis aims to further grow the company by integrating content, improving user engagement across platforms and integrating Mediahuis’ experience in advertising, digital subscriptions and data analytics.
Philiep De Sutter, founder and CEO of RouteYou: “With RouteYou, we have pushed boundaries over the past 18 years to enable recreational online navigation for the millions of cyclists, hikers and others who use our platform. With Mediahuis, we have found the ultimate partner to ensure and successfully build on the future of the RouteYou platform. Mediahuis’ expertise in content, advertising and marketing will enable us to take our users’ route experience to new heights. This will allow us to further fulfil our mission to help users find, plan and experience the most beautiful routes, under the motto: ‘it’s not about the destination, it’s about the route and above all, who you travel it with’.”
Gert Ysebaert, CEO Mediahuis group: “With the acquisition of RouteYou, we are acquiring an experienced team and extensive content and platforms around recreational outdoor activities. We know that our readers have a real interest in hiking, cycling and walking. The integration of RouteYou offers great opportunities to enrich our service to subscribers. We are convinced that RouteYou and Mediahuis can mutually strengthen each other. We are therefore happy to pursue the continuation of the route with them.”
