Tour Guide tips to avoid client cancellations

How early do you travel clients book your guiding service? Some people book last-minute trips and may require a tour guide while they are already in town. Some travelers prefer good planning and may book their trip a year in advance.

Sightseeing tour cancellations usually do not apply to last-minute booking because the tours happen right away. However, cancellations do happen more with tours booked long before the actual tour date. Before we talk about ways to avoid client cancellation, we need to know the reason why travelers want to cancel the tour.

There are unavoidable reasons like natural disasters, political issues, etc. The volcanic ash in Europe caused thousands of flights to cancel or delay. Demonstrations in Bangkok have turned violents and thus travelers change their destination due to safety concerns. Cruise lines change route and skip the port in their original plans is another reason out of the traveler’s control. There is little a tour guide can do with such cancellations.

Another possibility is personal reasons - family members pass away, work changes, physically unfit for the trip … The clients may have to cancel or delay the whole trip. With these situations, you may offer your tour guide service in their next visit. Be attentive to their personal reasons and leave the tour options open. Travelers will appreciate your understanding and may still pass on the word about your service even though they haven’t met you as planned.

What OurExplorer do not wish to see and what a tour guide really should avoid is a client cancellation because of low professionalism. E.g. change the price from original communication. There are high and low seasons in many destinations but once a price quote is agreed, it is very poor performing of a tour guide to ask for more money. Even worse is short notice before the tour date. Slow reply to the client queries after they made the booking. Clients will feel less confident with you if their questions are not addressed properly and quickly.

There are occasions that a tour guide is unable to guide as scheduled (not because you got another more profitable booking). In such cases, you should communicate with your clients and explain the reasons clearly. Meanwhile, find a dependable tour guide for your client as a substitute, so that their sightseeing tours will not be affected.

It takes efforts to build up client trust and confirm a client booking. Do you have problems with tour cancellations? What do you do to reduce the number of cancellation? Share your problems and we can discuss.