ARTA Canada announced today that it has asked the Canadian Association of Tour Operators (CATO) to assist in clarifying its members' policies regarding options offered to consumers when a tour operator voluntarily cancels or is forced by government order to cancel departures to certain destinations due to the H1N1 flu pandemic.
Reports in the media this week predict a major increase in the spread of the H1N1 flu this coming fall, and the Conference Board of Canada is alerting businesses to be prepared. Warnings and predictions from the World Health Organization are also grim and foreboding.
Travel retailers and their clients across Canada cannot be subjected to another round of arbitrary and mandatory terms offered by Canadian tour operators to "choose an alternative destination or travel at a later date"; choices which clearly violate the terms and conditions published in the tour operators' own brochures and which violate certain consumers' rights to a full refund in accordance with Section 40 of Ontario Regulation 26/05, enforced by TICO.
The tour operators cite, in their own documentation, that they will provide a refund if they themselves cancel or change a departure and alternatives are not acceptable to the traveler. Travel retailers fully disclosed these tour operator terms and conditions, as required by certain provincial Regulations, only to find out that the tour operators failed to abide by their own terms.
In short, most all travel wholesalers failed to provide the travel services contracted for, failed (in many cases) to receive acceptance by travelers of alternatives, and failed to abide by their own terms and conditions to provide for a refund when requested.
ARTA Canada is also concerned that the time frame and deadline to accept and depart on alternate travel dates from the last tour operator cancellations to Mexico may now fall squarely during the next flu escalation. Will consumers be expected to choose yet another travel date?
"This situation is unacceptable, and something must be done to assure retailers and their clients that tour operators will not hold tour payments hostage to future travel or alternative destinations. There is every likelihood that there will be future cancellations, and tour operators simply must make their policies clear before the sale by the retailer takes place", said ARTA Canada president Bruce Bishins, CTC.
To this end, ARTA Canada will publish the tour operators' policies regarding alternatives, including refunds, on the ARTA Canada web site effective 17 August 2009.
"We don't wish to be adversarial about this, and we hope the tour operators will cooperate. One thing is for sure, recommendations to purchase 'all risk' travel insurance is neither a solution nor an option. We will not accept passing on additional costs to consumers to protect travelers from the fair treatment to which they are ethically and legally entitled", added Bishins.
A copy of the tour operator H1N1 cancellation policy inquiry form, sent to CATO today, may be downloaded by clicking here.
