Your passport to adventure
PHONE: 1 877 260 3950
PHONE: 1 877 260 3950
The current Coronavirus outbreak has caused unprecedented upheaval for the world in so many ways, not just for people looking forward to travel abroad. We are committed to providing safe and enjoyable holidays for our customers, and in response to the updated official travel advice and global travel restrictions being put in place, we have taken the decision to suspend all our tours departing from 19th March through until the 21st June. All travellers on tour during March were assisted with arrangements to either complete their tours if appropriate or to fly home early.
We'd like to thank all affected travellers for their patience while we work through affected bookings in priority of departure date. We also owe a debt of thanks to our friends, partners and providers in our destinations who work so hard on our customers' behalf, and who also have a very uncertain future ahead of them while these travel restrictions remain in place. Many live in countries with relatively poorly developed health systems, so our best wishes go to them all. They remain ready to welcome our customers again when times are better and restrictions are eased. Finally we'd like to thank all our customers, both old and new, for their continued support which will be both needed and welcomed hugely by our team here and in all these countries.
This suspension applies to tours in all our destinations.
All affected travellers will receive a credit of 110% of all payments made towards their land tour, available to use towards future travel with us. You may finalise your new travel date at anytime up to the end of April 2021, for travel anytime up to the end of September 2022, over 2 years from now. Any travel insurance purchased may also be adjusted to cover your new date provided no claims have been made.
We will adjust all bookings to show your available credit automatically. You do not need to choose or finalise your new travel date or tour now. You may travel on the same tour, or change itinerary if you wish.
Bookings with an international flight included will be adjusted subject to your airline's rules. Many airlines are waiving change fees, but some are not allowing full cancellations or refunds. As you will imagine, airlines and flight agents are swamped with requests for changes and cancellations at the moment so please be patient if you would like to finalise changes to your tickets and select new dates now. We will advise new flight times and ticket details for your new date as soon as we are able to.
At this stage, our tours starting from 22nd June onwards are scheduled to operate as planned. We are however very aware that many of our travellers have concerns about their upcoming travel plans and may wish to change them. In order to offer as much flexibility as possible, we have therefore made significant changes to the rebooking and cancellation terms for all our travellers starting tours from the 22nd June onwards.
After assessing and passing on any charges imposed by your airline if a flight is included in your booking, there will be:
After assessing and passing on any charges imposed by your airline if a flight is included in your booking, there will be:
We are not taking any new bookings for travel in May or June. However, we are adding extra flexibility for customers looking to book a new holiday and travel in the relatively near future. We want to cater for concerns people may have about committing to travel plans in the current climate and their desire for more flexible options than normal to allow for changes should they be necessary. After assessing and passing on any charges imposed by your airline if a flight is included, there will be:
We will continue to monitor the situation in all our destinations as it develops and follow official government advice. Our local destination teams have enhanced hygiene procedures already in operation, and we will continue to pass on information and advice to our travellers about precautions to take while on tour, and self-screening before travel.
The suspension of tours is being extended on a rolling basis. This allows us to prioritise our reduced available staff's time on departures due to depart shortly, and to give as many people as possible the opportunity to still enjoy the holiday they've been looking forward to.
We do encourage as many of our travellers as possible to take up the credit voucher option if their tour is cancelled. This will both enable us to support our own staff and just as importantly our teams of local guides and representatives around the world who rely so hugely on incoming tourism and are being hit hard at the moment. It will also make sure that you have an exciting holiday to look forward to, at a time convenient to you, when travel restrictions are eased again.
If this really isn't an option for you, then please do get in touch with our travel consultant team and they will discuss next steps regarding cancellations and refunds.
with best wishes to all our exisitng and future travellers,
Ralph Foulds, Managing Director, and all the Encounters Travel team
