Attraction weather closure policy: deciding, telling, refunding

An attraction weather closure policy says who decides to close and on what trigger, whether you close one entry, one activity or the whole day, how every ticket holder is told, and what they may choose: a new date, a refund or credit. Write it before the storm. On the day, the software's job is to stop sales, count who is affected and tell each guest once.

Everything about the policy itself is yours: the trigger, what you close and what you offer. What follows are the options, their trade-offs, and what a ticketing system has to do so the policy holds up when the sky turns.

Who decides to close, and on what?

Name one person per shift who can close, and a deputy. Committees don't beat thunderstorms.

Then write the triggers down, per activity, in the terms your insurer, your equipment makers and your local rules give you. An outdoor zip-line, an open-top deck, a water park and a sculpture garden have different thresholds for wind, lightning, heat and rain. A trigger written down in advance turns a judgement made under pressure into a check against a list. It also gives you the words to tell guests.

Last, decide when you decide. A closure announced two hours ahead lets guests change plans. One announced at the gate does not. Set a decision time each morning on doubtful days, plus a rule for closing on the spot.

Should you close one entry, one activity or the whole day?

A storm rarely covers a whole day, so a closure shouldn't have to either.

In iTravel Attractions you close from the capacity calendar. Open a day, then either close one entry of a ticket or close the whole day. Closing an entry blocks all of its places and keeps the reason you typed. For a rental, it blocks every item at that time. Closing the day makes it one of the venue's closed days for every ticket. To close one activity for the day, close each of its entries. A day already gone cannot be closed.

The last row of the table hides a trap. If you close the whole day at 13:00, every ticket for that day still unused is affected, including the 09:00 tickets of guests who never came. Closing only the afternoon entries leaves the morning as it was. For how entry times and their places work, see timed-entry slot capacity.

How do you tell every ticket holder?

Three rules:

1. Count first. Before confirming, see how many tickets and how many bookings the closure touches.
2. Tell each booking once, in the language the guest booked in, with your reason in your own words ("Storm warning from 14:00").
3. Send them to one place to act. Not a phone line. A page where they choose.

Attractions does it in that order. Before you confirm, the sheet shows "Tickets 240 · Bookings 80". When you confirm, each affected booking is marked and its guest gets one email in the language they bought in: what was closed, your reason, and a button to choose what to do. A booking touched by two closed entries still gets one email. The guest's ticket page then says "The venue had to close for this visit" and offers the choices. Gate phones pick up any cancellation or move within about half a minute while online, as covered in offline ticket scanning.

An email needs an address. Before you confirm, Attractions lists the bookings no email will reach (box-office sales made without an address) by name, with a link to each, so the desk can call them.

Refund, new date or credit: what your policy decides

This is the heart of the policy, and there is no single answer. Your options:

Here is what Attractions does, so your written policy can match it. On the venue page, When you close a visit yourself decides what a closure offers. Switched on (the default), each guest may move to another day or time whenever they like, or cancel for everything they paid, whatever your normal terms say. Switched off, they may still move at any time, and a cancellation follows your usual cancel policy. Your normal terms still govern every other booking. You set those on the venue: changes allowed up to so many hours before, cancellation up to so many hours before, and what share is refunded.

On top of that:

• The desk can still act for a guest. Staff can move a booking outside the guest's window, or cancel with a refund they type, never more than was paid.
• Credit is something you add. You can issue a gift card by hand under Products → Gift cards, and the guest's refund choice still stands.
• Each guest is offered only what their booking can do. A rental holds several slots at once, so its guest is offered a cancellation, never a move; a booking that can do neither is told the venue will be in touch. A cancelled rental gives back every slot it held. See equipment rental booking.
• Money goes back the way it came. A card refund goes out through your own provider. Any part paid by gift card goes back onto that card, never as cash. A refund your payment method can't make by itself shows on Today under Needs a person.

What about members and gift cards?

Members. A member card is not a booking for a particular day, so a closure doesn't touch it. Nothing is refunded and its end date stays the same. If you want to give members something for closed days, put it in the membership terms when you sell the card, and apply it yourself. The membership and annual pass post covers card terms.

Gift cards. A booking paid partly with a gift card and then cancelled puts that part back on the card. Gift cards and membership plans are not sold for a day, so the shop keeps selling them during a closure. More in gift cards for attractions.

What do the shop and the box office stop selling?

Nothing should be sold for a time you have closed, by anyone, through any channel.

• A closed entry has every place blocked. Nothing more is sold for it, whatever comes back from cancellations or moves, and no guest can move into it.
• A closed day is shut for every ticket of the venue, in the shop and at the box office alike, rentals included.
• Everything else keeps selling: other entries, other days, gift cards, memberships.

Worked example: a storm afternoon

Say an outdoor adventure park sells timed entry every hour from 09:00, with 300 places per entry. At 12:30 a storm warning arrives for 14:00 onwards. The duty manager follows the written trigger: close the afternoon, keep the morning.

Before confirming each closure, the sheet shows:

The manager types "Storm warning from 14:00" and closes the three entries. Each of the 166 bookings with an email address gets one email, in its guest's language. From that moment, the shop and the box office have nothing left to sell after the 13:00 entry.

Suppose that by evening 100 bookings have moved to another day, 56 have cancelled, and 10 have done nothing yet. The other 4 are box-office sales from that morning with no email address: the closing sheet listed them by name, so the desk called them. Of the 56 cancellations, two were partly paid by gift card: that part goes back on the cards, and the rest goes back through the park's own payment provider.

Had the manager closed the whole day instead, any unused morning tickets would have been offered a full refund too (with the venue's default setting). Closing only the afternoon limited the refunds to the visits that really couldn't happen. Whether that is fair to the 09:00 guests who stayed away is a policy question. It is just better answered before the storm than during it.

The same routine applies to any venue sold by the slot, from decks to museum gardens (see timed-entry ticketing).

Checklist: your weather closure policy

• [ ] One named person per shift can close, and a deputy.
• [ ] Triggers are written down per activity, from your insurer's and your equipment makers' limits.
• [ ] You have a decision time for doubtful days.
• [ ] You know when you close single entries and when the whole day.
• [ ] You have decided what you offer on top: a new date, a refund, credit, or a choice. It is written in your terms, and it matches what the system gives guests after a closure.
• [ ] Your usual change and cancellation terms are set on the venue, so everyone knows what changes when you close.
• [ ] Desk staff know to call the bookings the closing sheet lists without an email address.
• [ ] Membership terms say what members get, if anything, for days you close.
• [ ] A short, plain reason is ready to paste in the guests' languages ("Storm warning from 14:00").
• [ ] You have tried a closure on a test day and read the email a guest would get.