Who are Booking Terms and Conditions for?
Any business providing in-person tours or activities booked in advance. This might include group walking tours, driving tours, sports experiences, winery and brewery tours, boat tours, or cultural experiences.
Why do I need Booking Terms and Conditions?
To financially protect your business, reduce the potential for disputes and comply with NZ law.
No-shows and late cancellations can be incredibly frustrating and financially devastating. It is essential to let your customers know (in writing) any cancellation fee requirements and ways you limit your responsibility or liability before they book their service or experience. Otherwise, they could claim they don’t apply.
By requiring a deposit upfront and including cancellation fees, your customers will be motivated to show up for their bookings (on time). It will also cover any booking costs you have to pay.
The Booking Terms and Conditions also limit your potential responsibility/liability where your customer incurs a loss due to your services and exclude your liability for loss or damage to a customer’s property or for events beyond your reasonable control.
What do Booking Terms and Conditions cover?
These Booking Terms and Conditions are simple, without legalese, easy to understand and easy to add to your booking process. They contain optional terms for either taking deposits from your customers, and/or charging cancellation fees for late cancellations, no-shows and late arrivals (which must be fair and reasonable and reflect your actual cost incurred).
The Terms also contain optional ‘no children’ or ‘no pets’ policies, an accessibility statement, the right to cancel the service due to bad weather conditions or inappropriate customer behaviour and a customised description of the risks associated with your service.
The Terms can be tailored entirely to your business.
How long will it take me to create my Booking Terms and Conditions?
Around 5 minutes – less time than it takes to make a coffee! During the Q&A you can save your progress to come back later, or repeat the Q&A to change an answer or produce a new version of a document.
What information do I need to complete the Q&A?
- How customers will pay you (eg. in full at the time of booking, on completion of the service, or by deposit with the balance payable before the service starts).
- The amount of the cancellation fee for late cancellations, no-shows and late arrivals (either a fixed fee, a percentage of the service fee or the amount of any deposit paid).
- The notice period required for customers to cancel without being required to pay a cancellation fee.
- The maximum number of minutes a customer can be late before you can charge a cancellation fee.
- A description of risks associated with your services.
- Whether a minimum number of participants or minimum age restriction applies.
- Whether your services are wheelchair and stroller-friendly, pet-friendly and weather dependent.
- Whether your customers need to comply with any suppliers' or venue operators' terms and conditions. If so, a link to those terms.
- Any other relevant terms and conditions.
What if I need help?
We’d love to help. Just contact us at hello@onyourterms.co.nz and we can either help over email or jump on a call.
Your document will be downloadable in MS Word, so you can make changes if you like (and add branding). Also, our legal partner Luminate Legal can provide legal advice for a fixed price if you’d like it.
What do I do once my Booking Terms and Conditions are created?
The Booking Terms and Conditions are ready to go as soon as you have downloaded the Word document. You can edit and brand as you wish. The Terms should be loaded to your booking app (with a “click here to accept our Booking Terms and Conditions”), with a paywall if you are collecting a deposit or full payment upfront, posted to your website, displayed in your physical store (if you have one) and loaded to (or linked to) all booking confirmation emails and texts.
Other helpful information:
- If you’re collecting personal information (such as names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card details), make sure you have a privacy policy covering how you will protect that data, and website terms of use setting out what your website visitors can and can’t do on your website (see our Website Essentials Bundle).
- You may also find these bundles or documents useful for your business: Services Agreement, Individual Employment Agreement, Independent Contractor Agreement.
- Check out our FAQs here.
If you’re unsure whether this document is what you need, reach out to us at hello@onyourterms.co.nz – we’re happy to help!
If you’re not satisfied with your purchase of this product for any reason, let us know why within 10 days of your purchase and we’ll work with you to make sure you’re happy, including giving you a full refund if necessary.
Disclaimer: On Your Terms was created to provide fast, easy and affordable access to legal information and documentation. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. The information and documents we provide are of a general nature, designed for common situations, and may not be suitable for your needs or circumstances. If you need legal advice, we have a network of specialist law firm partners able to help you here.