COVID cancellations: who should carry the can?

Here’s a controversial one: should hospitality firms - hosts, venue-owners, holiday providers and the like - issue refunds, in the case of late-notice COVID related cancellations?

If so, how far into the future should they be so obliged? And in what circumstances?

A few recent examples to ponder:-

1/ The family who felt they should be entitled to a full refund - having given five days’ notice - because the friends they’d planned to meet were prohibited from travelling to the UK.

2/ The group of six who cancelled because a previously scheduled concert - the principal reason for their stay - had been postponed.

3/ The couple who booked just a fortnight in advance of their stay, mid-pandemic, then cancelled *on the day*, having allegedly contracted the virus (no evidence provided).

Now, most right-thinking people would, I suspect, agree that:

the folk in Examples #1 and #2 should, as the young people say, ‘Do one’; and

the couple in Example #3 might - were evidence of infection provided - have, prima facie, a claim.?

And I use the word ‘claim’ advisedly; because, ordinarily, any form of accident, incident or illness precluding travel would indeed be the subject of a claim, submitted to the travellers’ insurers.?

But there’s the rub: travel insurers do not cover COVID 19.?

Which means that holiday-providers - be they? small, family businesses such as ours, or major players in the sector - are effectively forced to underwrite the COVID risk themselves.

Which in turn means either giving out cash refunds, or vouchers ‘to the value of’.?

And which, for the record, we’ve done.?

Indeed, I can cite dozens of families who’ve provisionally rescheduled for next year.

In each of those cases, the parties concerned were actually entitled to (and would have received) a full refund, in line with our COVID Cancellation Policy; either because their holidays coincided with local or national lockdowns; or their bookings predated the pandemic.?

Force Majeure.?

And of course we’re very grateful to all our regular and future guests who did elect to rebook; because issuing large scale refunds - of cash that had already been reinvested into the site - would have smarted, somewhat.

But that was then. Now, however, we are - what? - 18 months into the pandemic? Arguably longer. Yet there remains an expectation that, should COVID impact individuals’ holiday plans - either directly or indirectly -? their holiday providers should, at a minimum, reschedule their stay.

Not simply provide a voucher to the value of the original booking, you understand; but offer a like-for-like holiday, at a future date of their choosing (regardless of differing seasons, rate rises etc.).

Their logic (and I’ve had this said to me, in these exact words): It doesn’t cost you anything, because you’ve already had your money.

But you see: it does cost us. Because, being a seasonal business, we have a finite window in which to recoup our not insubstantial development costs. And rescheduling a booking serves only to kick the can down the road.

So, whichever way you look at it, the revenue that we should have received for a property and period… and on which the lovely people at Barclays depend, for their bounceback loan payments… is lost.

And we’re out of pocket - quite possibly to the tune of ￡100s.

Which brings me back to my original question: given that insurance companies are unwilling to shoulder the COVID risk… who should?

The holiday firms? Or the guests, who choose to book their holidays fully cognisant of the related risks?

For our part, in our Booking.com listings, we’ve begun offering prospective guests a choice; either to pay a lower rate with no cancellation rights; or a higher rate with the option to cancel at late notice.

We believe this is the fairest - least-worst - option.?

But if anyone out there has a better solution, we’d be delighted to hear it.