A festival to be held in July was canceled. Wondering how everyone is handling these types of reservations?

[Riva7]

We have a local festival that was scheduled for mid July that was just canceled.  My guest wants a full refund even though I have a strict cancellation policy.  I am wondering how everyone is handling these types of situations.  I realize this is a unique situation but it is also a business that has had zero income for weeks now.   

[Anonymous]

@Riva7   The Covid crisis may be uniquely global in its nature, but there's nothing unusual at all about festivals and other events being cancelled for some reason or other (weather, low ticket sales, etc). This in and of itself has never been deemed an "extenuating circumstance" that overrides the host's cancellation policy. Accommodation providers that don't operate in conjunction with whatever attraction the guest wants to attend are not liable for it.

However, that point becomes moot when travel in general is shut down, and you aren't able to receive guests anyway. Even if your locality is open to tourism in July, there's a high likelihood that Airbnb will extend the eligibility cutoff for Covid19-related cancellations through the rest of the summer (it's currently May 31). We might get an announcement on this later today. So if your guest booked before March 14, you can advise them to wait for an update to the cancellation policy and initiate the cancellation themselves if they become eligible. If they booked after March 14, you can recommend that they contact their travel insurer. 

At any rate, I do recommend that you proceed with the expectation that most of your upcoming bookings will be fully refunded. The next few months in the US are not looking good.

[David3267]

what did you do in the end please? I'm getting people now cancelling for end of July/ August, what do you think I should do?

[Debra300]

@Riva7,

Every room in my St. Lucia guesthouse was booked for Carnival in July. Carnival was canceled in early April, and I just bit the bullet and refunded every guest instead of telling them to apply their funds to a future stay (all of the reservations were made on Booking.com), because I think it was the right thing to do, and good fortune will come back to me in its time.  This was a big financial hit for us, because Carnival is the second busiest period for us after Christmas and New Year's.  

St. Lucia is one of the few countries that will open its borders in June; initially allowing only flights from the US.  Our place is currently closed, and we don't plan to re-open until the winter.  When we do get reservations, I will encourage our guests to purchase travel insurance.  Although coronavirus related incidents are unlikely to be covered for trip cancellation, it should cover events such as borders closures and flight cancellations.