UKC

Advice on taking bookings for climbing courses

I am starting my own business running rock climbing introduction and winter mountaineering courses.

My question is to other providers is,  how do I organise bookings. If not enough people book on a course, how do I avoid running at a loss or do I cancel the course?

Or do I over charge per person and some courses make enough money to cancel out the ones that lose money?

A slightly odd question this, as I would expect anyone who is at the point in the industry to offer courses of this nature would probably have a vague idea of how it works, but I will try and answer none the less. 

If you offer open courses which require a minimum number of participants to be economically viable to run then it's up to you if you go ahead and run at a loss/low day rate for yourself or cancel. 

Sometimes it might be worth running for two clients, when ideally you would have 4, as it's fairly easy to retain customers and have them book onto other courses in the future.

Sometimes it might not be worth your while to run them eg. a whole weekend for a single client and £200. 

Remember that if you are engaging other freelance staff to work on courses they will expect to be paid regardless of how many people you get booked on. If you cancel the booking they will expect you to honour their booking and pay. 

At the end of the day, it's up to you how you run your business and how much of a gamble you want to take. Look at the prices other companies charge and don't devalue the industry by trying to undercut them. It's not a race to the bottom. Offer high quality tuition and charge what you think is a fair rate accordingly. 

Personally, I don't think open courses represent good value to the customer. Whilst it's attractive to book a weekend course at low price, the reality of being grouped with 5 other random people of very different skills/abilities/aspirations means that the instructor is never going to be able to give a client the absolute best experience. I think bespoke courses for individual clients or small groups offers better value for money even if the actual cost per day is higher. 

Thanks for that. I prefer bespoke courses too and you are right in terms of value for money for the clients.

I ask because I never worked in the office and always worked on the hill/water. 

I don't want to sound hostile or like a bit of an ar5e - but I'm sure this represents a proportion of other people who would book with you.

If I make a booking with you for a course on some date, I arrange time off work (bear in mind that your customers might work weekends too) or generally organise myself and you take the money and tell me I have a place on the course - I will regard you as having entered into a contract to provide it, maybe not in the strict legal sense because you may have (hopefully!) some Ts&Cs to cover yourself here, but emotionally I will expect it to be delivered.

Obviously stuff happens in life and there are legitimate reasons you might need to cancel my place. But if you cancelled on me because you didn't get as many places as you liked, I would feel dissatisfied. The closer to the date the cancellation the more dissatisfied and let down I'd feel, and I might require a refund so I can rebook it with another provider.

Just to repeat my disclaimer: that I may be seen as unreasonable, but this is how other customers may see it too. So you may need to accept running at a loss on a few course now and again so that you are seen as reliable.

Best of luck with the new career!

If I run an open course it’s running regardless of numbers.

If I only get one booking I take the financial hit. Most of my courses are 1:2 ratio.

When I first started this wasn’t uncommon, now I’ve been trading a while it’s rare. In my view it was worth playing the long game but we’ve all got our different business ideas.

Well exactly. I would be upset too, hence the question.

Ok. That's what I thought. 

Husband was furious when he arranged time off work for a course and it was cancelled less than a week before because two people had pulled out. Ok he got a full refund, but T&C meant they will have pocketed full payment from the non attendees. This is not a good way to get repeat business.

Well I am trying not to let people down. 

Obviously nobody expects you to run at a loss. But once a course is confirmed people expect it to run, you take non refundable deposits to help protect yourself should someone pull out.

I keep course fees if people cancel last minute. It’s in my terms and conditions. I don’t think this is unreasonable as I’m running a business after all. You can’t imagine Ryanair giving you a refund just because you decided not to fly on the day you had booked for.

If your husbands scenario had happened to me, I probably would have run the course anyway since I had the full course fees off the others.

Yes totally reasonable, although I would expect a refund if you were subsequently asked able to sell the place on to someone else.

That's exactly what we expected to happen. They had received full payment from everyone who booked, so wouldn't have been running at a loss and therefore had no reason to cancel for those who could still attend.

Yes totally reasonable, although I would expect a refund if you were able to sell the place on to someone else.

That's exactly what we expected to happen. They had received full payment from everyone who booked, so wouldn't have been running at a loss and therefore had no reason to cancel for those who could still attend. (Would be deferent if it was a group activity and needed a minimum number to put the training into practice - which this wasn't)