Tour cancellation policy: what to offer, with templates

Write each rule once, in plain words, and use it everywhere: your website, booking sites and your terms.

Choose a cancellation policy

Tour	Policy	Why
Day tour	Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start	The market standard: Viator's, used by the vast majority of its tours (2025)
Multi-day trip, charter, prepaid tickets or rooms	Steps that follow your costs: 100% back up to 30 days before, 50% up to 7 days, nothing after	It covers what you've already paid out

Cancellation policy for a day tour

Free cancellation: cancel up to 24 hours before the start for a full refund.
If you cancel later, or don't come, we can't refund you.
If we cancel, for the weather or too few guests, you choose another date or a full refund.

Decide what guests get when you cancel

You cancel for	Guests get
Weather	Another date first, or a full refund if they can't take it
Too few guests	Decided 24–48 hours before: the tour runs anyway, joins another departure or goes private, or they choose another date or a full refund
Your own reasons, such as a sick guide	Another guide if you can find one, or else a full refund

Weather rule

This tour depends on the weather. We decide by 6 pm the day before whether it can run safely, and message you at once if it can't.
If we cancel for the weather, you choose another date or a full refund.

Record a weather cancellation as an event outside your control: GetYourGuide leaves those out of its 1% limit on the bookings you cancel over 90 days, and can remove tours that exceed it (2026). Your weather limits go in your safety plan. When a crisis stops your tours for days, see When things go wrong.

Handle no-shows

A no-show gets no refund: say so in your terms and booking e-mails, and check guests in to prove who came.

No-show rule

Please be at the meeting point 15 minutes before the start. If you aren't there when it starts, the tour leaves without you, with no refund.

Report no-shows to booking sites the same day. GetYourGuide takes a report within 24 hours of the tour's end, only when the whole group missed it through no fault of yours, and it can't be undone (2026).
Guests who can't find you count as your no-show, allowed on at most 0.2% of GetYourGuide bookings over 90 days (2026). Give a precise meeting point, remind guests of it the day before, and warn them if you're late: see Guest experience.

Take a deposit only where it fits

Tour	Guests pay
Ordinary day tour	In full when they book
Private, multi-day or expensive trip	A deposit when they book, the rest before free cancellation ends

Then late cancellations are already paid in full.

Put it all in your terms

Guests accept your terms when booking, and they're your evidence if one disputes a card payment (a chargeback). Make them match your policies, and cover:

✓Booking and payment
✓Cancellation by the guest, and by you
✓Changes
✓Health, fitness and conduct
✓Complaints

In TourTask

Set your refund steps, and the refunds when you cancel for Force majeure (events outside your control) or Service failure, in Cancellation policies; Viator and GetYourGuide use the policy set in your account with each. Put your weather and no-show rules in Tour information: it goes into booking e-mails and vouchers. Check guests in by scanning their vouchers, and see Deposits and Terms and conditions.