They never showed up. We have been waiting in the lobby but nobody came or contacted me. We had to organise a private tour through the hotel and we had to pay again. It has never happened before with all viator tour I booked in other countries. We hope to receive a refund.
事業者からの返答
Dear Valued Customer, Mr. Antonio,
My name is Fikri, and I am the owner of Smartway Tours, the travel agency with which you booked your Mount Bromo tour.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I sincerely appreciate your feedback, which has reached my desk directly today. On behalf of myself and the entire Smartway Tours team, I would like to extend our deepest apologies for the inconvenience and disappointment you experienced.
We fully understand how frustrating it must have been to wait for your tour, receive no communication, and ultimately have to arrange an alternative tour at your own expense. Regardless of the circumstances, this is certainly not the experience we want any of our guests to have.
Allow me to provide some transparency regarding the situation:
1. Booking Notification Issue. After investigating the matter, we found that a technical issue prevented the booking notification from being delivered to our operational email system. As a result, our team was not immediately aware of your reservation.
2. Follow-Up Contact Attempts. Once we identified the booking, we immediately attempted to contact you using the contact information provided in the reservation.
3. Confirmation Requirement. Unfortunately, we did not receive any response or confirmation from your side. As stated in the tour details, this tour requires confirmation from the customer prior to departure. We also attempted to reach you via WhatsApp; however, the phone number listed in the reservation was not registered on WhatsApp.
4. Additional Efforts to Reach You. As an additional effort, our team contacted the hotel where you were staying. However, due to privacy policies, the hotel was unable to provide guest information or connect us directly with you.
5. Operational Procedure. Based on our standard operating procedures, we are unable to dispatch a tour when we have not been able to establish contact with the guest or receive the required confirmation before departure. Please be assured that there was never any intention on our part to cancel, ignore, or fail to operate your tour.
6. Refund Resolution. Regarding the refund request, I will personally coordinate with Tripadvisor/Viator today and ensure that this matter is handled as smoothly as possible. We are fully prepared to authorize a full refund in recognition of the inconvenience you experienced.
As we are committed to resolving this issue in good faith, I would kindly ask you to consider removing the review once the refund process has been completed. We genuinely believe this incident was the result of an unforeseen communication and system notification issue, rather than a lack of commitment to serving our guests.
Your understanding and consideration would mean a great deal to us, especially as a small local business that works hard to maintain the trust of our customers.
We are committed to providing reliable, transparent, and professional travel services to all of our guests. The situation you experienced does not reflect the standards we strive to maintain, and we are currently reviewing our internal notification procedures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Once again, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding, and we hope to have the opportunity to restore your confidence in Smartway Tours.
PS: For any further assistance, please feel free to contact my personal (+62 882-2166-8978)
Warm regards,
Fikri
Owner - Smartway Tours
