Put clear booking rules around your tours

Tours involve moving parts that ordinary website terms often do not deal with well. You may be taking deposits, relying on minimum numbers, changing itineraries because of weather, using third-party operators, or setting age, fitness or safety requirements for participants. A dedicated set of tour terms helps put those points in one place so customers can see the booking rules before they commit. It also gives your business a clearer starting point if there is a disagreement about cancellations, inclusions, missed departures or participant conduct.

That depends on how your tours are sold, but the document often covers bookings, payment timing, cancellation and refund rules, transfers to another date, late arrivals, minimum participant numbers, itinerary changes, weather-related changes, health and safety expectations, and what is included or excluded from the tour price. If your tours involve physical activities, transport, equipment or third-party venues, those details can affect the wording as well. We shape the document around the practical issues customers are most likely to raise before and after booking.

We usually need a practical outline of your tour format, how customers book, whether you take full payment or deposits, your cancellation position, and any operational issues that affect the customer experience. For example, we may ask whether tours run in fixed groups, whether dates can change, whether children can attend, whether waivers are already used, and whether third-party suppliers are involved. Those details matter because the wording for a walking tour, adventure activity, charter experience or multi-stop guided trip can differ in important ways.

They can help set expectations and allocate risk, but liability clauses need to be handled carefully. In New Zealand, some rights and remedies cannot simply be signed away, especially in consumer-facing arrangements. For that reason, the wording needs to match the nature of your tours and the way they are sold. We can include provisions dealing with participant responsibilities, assumptions of risk, operator changes and limits around indirect loss where appropriate, but the document is not a blanket shield against every claim or incident.

After you engage us, we will gather the details we need about your tours and booking setup, then prepare the first draft of your terms. You will have a chance to read through the document and raise any practical changes, such as updates to refund wording or booking steps. Timing depends on how quickly instructions and feedback come through, but we can usually move promptly once we have the core information. If you later need broader help beyond the document itself, we can quote separately for that work.

Submit an enquiry on this page or click 'Get started'. One of our legal consultants will review it within 1 business day and get in touch to understand what you need.

Your consultant will then email you a fixed-fee quote setting out the cost, scope and timing. If you're happy with it, you can accept the quote and sign our engagement letter online.

Once you've accepted, one of our Australian-qualified lawyers will work with you to complete your project. They'll contact you by email or phone if they need anything.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Tour Terms And Conditions service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We work online, so we can help wherever you are in New Zealand. Our team works remotely, mainly from Australia.

Your work is done by our Australian-qualified lawyers, who hold Australian practising certificates and specialise in business law. None of them are New Zealand lawyers or hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

Sprintlaw NZ Limited is a legal consultancy, not a law firm, and is not regulated by the New Zealand Law Society. We don't act in court or tribunal matters, conveyancing (including leases and business sales) or other reserved areas of work. Communications with Sprintlaw are unlikely to be protected by legal professional privilege. We still keep everything confidential under our engagement letter.