Coronavirus Travel Update

Welcoming you back on holiday – safely and responsibly

Having abruptly called a halt to our tour operations in March, our priority is now to prepare to start running holidays again safely.  As you’ll expect, we’re placing an emphasis on your health, safety and well-being as well as that of the tour leaders and others who’ll be looking after you on your travels with us.

We’re enhancing our health and safety policies and procedures to take into account the new challenges posed by Covid-19, and although you’ll see some changes in the way we operate, we’ll be aiming to provide as close to a ‘normal’ holiday as we can whilst taking sensible measures to reduce the risks when travelling in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

We’ll keep inconveniences to a minimum, allow our tour leaders the flexibility to adapt arrangements locally if necessary, and keep you informed all the way.

For your reassurance

The world’s still more beautiful (and safer) on foot

Book with us and travel with confidence

We are looking forward to re-starting our tour operations and welcoming you on our holidays again as soon as we can.

With the rules on travel now being eased, we are anticipating the lifting of travel restrictions, the reopening of our destinations and making the necessary adjustments to our holiday programmes so that you can travel again – and do so in the confidence that we’re doing what we need to do to make the experience both safe and enjoyable.

Current Holiday Cancellations
 The safety of all our customers, leaders and staff are, as ever, our primary priority and, as such, we have now made the decision to cancel the following:

Selected UK & short haul holidays will also be cancelled until the end of the year.We will continue to review departures on a rolling basis.

Rebooking & Refunds for Cancelled Holidays
As we process individual holiday cancellations, we will be writing to all impacted to enclose a Refund Credit Note. This is an initiative developed by our industry governing body, ABTA, which financially protects your money during the period between us cancelling your original holiday and you either rebooking an alternative or us being able to begin to process a refund in due course. We are issuing these in the order in which our tours were due to depart so please do bear with us whilst we administer these.

The Refund Credit Note is intended as a short-term confirmation of your legal entitlement to a replacement holiday or a refund. It works by ensuring that your cancelled holiday booking, the money you have paid for it, and the financial protection provided under the ATOL scheme (for flight-inclusive holidays) or through our ABTA bond (for holidays without flights) are all linked and your money remains protected until such time as you rebook onto a replacement holiday or we are able to provide a refund of the monies paid for your cancelled holiday.

Shielding Advice
In the meantime, if you are due to travel with us on one our tours before the end of August and have received a letter from the government advising you to shield or you are protecting a person who is shielding please do get in touch with our team via email at [email protected] to discuss your options.

Balance Due Dates & Advice for Future Holidays
We do also recognise the uncertain times we are in and have therefore have extended the balance due date to four weeks prior to departure for holidays in July and August to enable you more flexibility. Balances for short haul holidays departing September remain payable 8 weeks prior to departure and from October onwards remain payable 10 weeks prior to departure. Balances for Long Haul holidays departing from October remain payable 12 weeks prior to departure.

Please be aware that should you decide that you do not wish to travel and choose to cancel your booking for a departure date after 1 August, whilst the holiday remains on sale and due to go ahead, you will not be entitled to a refund. Should you wish to defer your holiday to a later date, we will of course sympathetically review requests on a case by case basis.

Please note for as long as the Foreign Office continues to advise against all but essential travel and you bought your travel insurance before the coronavirus became a ‘known event’, you may be able to make a claim against your insurance company for costs relating to a cancelled holiday.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our team via [email protected] and we will be happy to help.

In the meantime, we are very much looking forward to welcoming you back on one of our holidays in the not too distant future and we thank you so much for your patience, understanding and loyalty during these times.