For me it’s a sad day when instead of getting round to posting pictures of fish and to tell you a bit about whats going on… the topic of Covid-19 crops up…. it just won’t go away!!
I wanted to post this, to explain some of the effects it has had on my business as well as hundreds and thousands of others around the world!!!
I am the sole proprietor at On The Ebro and been running my business for 17 years. Customers are everything to my business and im so very fortunate to have a large customer base with so many of you coming back year after year. Many of you have become friends and for this reason makes difficult decisions… even more difficult!!!
The Covid pandemic forced countries to close their borders…. here in Spain we really were ” lockdown “!!! The correct thing for me to do was to honour customers deposits for a return trip in 2021…. I’m happy to say it went smoothly with everyone booked in where they wanted. After restrictions were lifted I managed to complete 3 bookings before the UK inserted the quarantine rules for people returning from Spain. My already disrupted year just made worse!!! My problem now is!!! Do I play hard ball???? Because in theory people can still travel here, they have no restrictions in movement here, I am fully open and operational…. but on customers return they can’t afford to quarantine for 14 days and everyone has cancelled or are in the process of cancelling. My terms and conditions state that deposits are non refundable!! so i could just take the deposits and risk upsetting so many customers who have been so loyal over the years and also risk loosing my future repeat/ loyal customers!!!!
I have taken the decision to honour deposits from groups affected by qurantine, for a trip in 2021, not only have I suffered financially this year but now 2021 as well with the year full of customers with deposits honoured from this year.
I am giving you notice that I can’t do this again, this unprecedented year has hit me hard! so I am in the process of changing the Terms and Conditions to give me and my business some future protection.
All bookings and re-scheduled bookings will have to fill out a new booking form and the booking will be in line with the new Terms and Conditions which will be enforced should they need be.
I hope you all understand and that you all stay safe….. and maybe one day soon this horrible Virus will be just a memory instead of the daily topic of conversation and concern.
Best Regards Paul
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