General Terms and Conditions for Contracts and Agency Services
Dear visitors,
The following General Terms and Conditions shall govern the legal relationship between, on the one hand, Ulm/Neu-Ulm Touristik GmbH – hereinafter referred to as ›UNT‹ – and you – hereinafter referred to as ›the Visitor‹ – and/or the Customer ordering a guided tour arranged by UNT and, on the other, the legal relationship between you and the tour guide. To the extent that these General Terms and Conditions are validly incorporated, they shall form part of the service contract concluded between you and/or the Customer and the tour guide in the event of a booking. Please read the following terms and conditions carefully before making a booking.
1. Legal position of UNT and the tour guide; applicable legal regulations
1.1. The tour guide acting as an independent service provider shall provide the contractual services advertised as direct contractual partner of the Visitor and/or the Customer. UNT shall only act as intermediary helping to conclude the contract between the Visitor and/or the Customer ordering the tour and the tour guide providing the tour.
1.2. Provided that UNT also acts as intermediary for other services, the following provisions shall apply: UNT acting as intermediary shall have the status of an operator providing linked travel arrangements provided that the requirements for linked travel arrangements offered by UNT are met according to the legal regulations of Sect. 651w of the German Civil Code (BGB).
1.3. Without prejudice to the obligations of UNT as operator providing linked travel arrangements (including but not limited to transmitting the statutory form and providing security for the refund of payments made by customers in the event of UNT's insolvency) and to the legal consequences in the event of non-compliance with these legal obligations, UNT – should the conditions set out in paragraph 1.1. and 1.1. be met – shall be neither the tour operator nor the contracting party of the tour guiding contract concluded in the event of a booking. In the event of such orders and/or guided tours, UNT shall not be held liable for any information provided on fees or services, for the actual performance or any failure in performance in connection with the guided tour. This shall not apply if the guided tour is part of any arrangement agreed in a package travel contract or any other arrangement where UNT is the direct contractual partner of the Visitor and/or the Customer.
1.4. This shall be without prejudice to any liability of UNT arising from the agency contract and the legal regulations, including but not limited to the binding telecommunications media and e-commerce rules.
1.5. For individual tours, UNT shall be the only contractual partner of the Visitor. Where this is the case, the following rules on the rights and duties of the Visitor on the one hand and the tour guide on the other hand shall apply mutatis mutandis with the proviso that, in the event of individual tours, it shall not be the tour guide but UNT that is subject to these rights and duties.
1.6. The legal relationship between the tour guide (or UNT in case of individual tours in accordance with para. 1.5) and the Visitor and/or the Customer arranging the tour shall primarily be subject to the contracts concluded with the tour guide and/or UNT acting as their intermediary, and then to these General Terms and Conditions, and in the alternative to the contractual duties in a service contract under Sect. 611 et seq. of the German Civil Code (BGB). The service agency relationship with UNT shall primarily be subject to the contracts concluded with UNT, then to the provisions on UNT acting as intermediary set forth in these Terms and Conditions, and in the alternative, to the legal regulations of Sect. 675 on the non-gratuitous management of the affairs of another of the German Civil Code (BGB).
1.7. Unless provided otherwise by mandatory regulations under international or European law applicable to the contractual relationship with the tour guide and/or the agency services provided by UNT for the benefit of the Visitor and/or the Customer, the entire legal and contractual relationship with the tour guide and UNT shall be governed exclusively by the laws of Germany.
2. Conclusion of contract, legal position of a Customer representing a group
2.1. The following shall apply to all booking channels set out below: If the booking is made by a third party referred to herein as ›Customer‹, i.e. organisations or businesses (private groups, adult education centre, school classes, clubs, tour operators, incentive or event agencies, travel agencies), this third party acting as the sole Customer shall be the contractual partner of UNT under the agency contract, and/or of the tour guide under the service contract unless the Customer expressly acts as the legal representative of the future participants according to the agreements concluded. In this case, the Customer shall be obliged to pay the remuneration agreed or make any other contractual payments in full.
2.2. The following shall apply to any oral or written booking, made by telephone, fax or email:
a) By making a booking, the Visitor and/or the Customer shall make a binding offer to the tour guide represented by UNT, acting as his/her legal representative, to conclude a service contract based on the specifications of the scheduled tour and on these General Terms and Conditions, and shall also award the agency contract to UNT.
b) The service contract on the guided tour shall be concluded upon receipt of the booking confirmation sent by UNT acting as representative of the tour guide. There shall be no formal requirements. As a general rule, however, UNT shall send the Visitor and/or Customer a written copy of the booking confirmation, excluding bookings made at very short notice.
2.3. UNT points out that the right of withdrawal shall be excluded for contracts on guided tours if these are contracts for services relating to leisure activities that were concluded at a distance (by letters, catalogues, telephone calls, faxes, emails, Short Message Services (SMS) or broadcasting and television services) according to the legal regulations (Sect. 312q(2)(1) para. 9 of the German Civil Code (BGB)), in this case, only the legal regulations on the non-use of services (Sect. 611 et seq., 615 of the German Civil Code (BGB)) shall apply (cf. also para. 6 and 7 of these General Terms and Conditions). However, there shall be a right of withdrawal if the contract was not concluded at distance but negotiated away from business premises.
2.4. The following shall apply to the conclusion of a contract for bookings made without individual communication using online booking instead (e-commerce):
a) The online portal shall inform the Visitor on the procedure of online booking. The Visitor shall have the possibility of making corrections, by editing any entries, deleting or resetting the entire online booking form at any time, which shall be indicated in advance.
b) By clicking on the ›Order now‹ button, the Visitor shall make a binding offer to the tour guide to conclude a service contract on a guided tour and shall also award the agency contract to UNT. The Visitor shall immediately receive an electronic confirmation upon receipt of the booking request.
c) The binding offer to conclude a contract by clicking the ›Order now‹ button shall not give the Visitor and/or Customer the right to the formation of a service contract with the tour guide according to their booking requests. The tour guide and/or UNT acting as his/her representative shall be free to decide whether they wish to accept the contract proposal of the Visitor and/or the Customer.
d) When accepting the agency contract, UNT shall accept no procurement risk or guarantee that a contract with a tour guide can be provided that actually meets the requirements of the booking of the Visitor and/or the Customer.
e) Such contract shall be concluded upon the receipt of the booking confirmation by the Visitor and/or Customer, which is sent by UNT acting as intermediary or representative of the tour guide. There shall be no formal requirements for such booking confirmations.
c) The booking shall be either confirmed by displaying a screen image in real time (real-time booking) following the Visitor and/or Customer clicking the ›Order now‹ button to make a booking, or by the Visitor sending the booking request in the required or agreed format in writing, by email or fax, and by the Visitor and/or Customer receiving an electronic confirmation of receipt of such request.
g) Should the booking confirmation be displayed on the client's screen in real time, the client shall be enabled to save and print such booking confirmation. The binding effect of the service contract concluded with the tour guide and/or the agency contract awarded to UNT shall not be made subject to the Visitor's and/or Customer's actual use of the option to save or print the booking confirmation.
h) As a rule, UNT shall send an additional copy of the booking confirmation to the Visitor and/or Customer via email, email attachment, post or fax in addition to the booking confirmation displayed on the screen. Again, the binding effect of the service contract concluded with the tour guide shall not be made subject to the receipt of such additional copy of the booking confirmation.
3. Services; deviating agreements; altering essential services; length of tours; weather conditions
3.1. The service to be provided by the tour guide shall include providing a guided tour according to the specifications and any additional agreements concluded.
3.2. Unless expressly agreed otherwise, the guided tour need not be provided by a specific tour guide. Rather it shall be the responsibility of UNT to select a tour guide on the basis of the required qualifications. UNT shall provide an additional tour guide for groups of more than 20 people participating in a walking tour.
3.3. UNT shall reserve the right to replace a specific tour guide with another suitable and qualified tour guide if he/she is unable to attend for compelling (including but to limited to health) reasons even if a specific tour guide has been requested or expressly agreed on.
3.4. The scope of the services owed shall be determined by the specifications and the additional agreements concluded. Any information or assurances given by third parties or any agreements concluded with these parties (including but not limited to travel agencies, hotels, transport companies, restaurants, museums or other sightseeing sites) on the scope of the contractual services to be provided that are contrary to the specifications or the agreements concluded with UNT and/or the tour guide, shall not be binding for UNT and the tour guide.
3.5. Any changes or modifications of the contractual services shall require an explicit agreement concluded with UNT or the tour guide; written form is recommended here for reasons of proof.
3.6. Any changes of essential services deviating from the content agreed in this contract that become necessary after signing the contract (including but not limited to changes in the itinerary of the guided tour) and have not been caused by the tour guide in bad faith, shall be permitted provided that these are not substantial changes and that they will not affect the overall arrangement of the guided tour. Any warranty claims of the Visitor and/or the Customer shall remain unaffected in the case of such changes of essential services.
3.7. Any information on the length of guided tours shall be provided on a purely indicative basis.
3.8. The following shall apply to weather conditions and their impact on guided tours:
a) In the absence of a specific provision to the contrary, the agreed tours shall take place in all weathers.
b) The Visitor and/or the Customer shall not have the right to withdraw from or terminate the contract with the tour guide free of charge for weather reasons. This shall not apply if the Visitor's or Customer's body, health or property is so severely affected that, on objective grounds, participating in the guided tour cannot be reasonably expected from the Visitor and/or Customer and their participants.
c) Where such weather conditions are present at the start of the guided tour or can be expected for the agreed start of the guided tour, the Visitor and/or the Customer and the tour guide and/or UNT acting as his/her representative shall reserve the right to ordinary and extraordinary termination of the contract on the guided tour.
d) In the event of such termination by the tour guide and/or UNT acting as his/her representative, the Visitor and/or Customer shall have no right to claim any refund of costs, including but not limited to travel and accommodation costs, unless these contractual or statutory claims made by the Visitor and/or Customer are based on compensation for damages or expenditures.
4. Fees and payment
4.1. The agreed fees shall include the guided tour and any additional services that were advertised or agreed.
4.2. Entry fees, costs of meals and costs of public and private transport, maps, brochures, museum guides and costs for guided tours of sights as part of the guided tour shall only be included in the agreed fee if they are mentioned explicitly in the specifications of the guided tour or have been agreed separately.
4.3. Unless agreed otherwise, the agreed fee for online bookings shall be paid by credit card or PayPal upon conclusion of the contract when due for payment. If the booking is made with UNT, payment shall be made after receipt of invoice following the guided tour. Vouchers can only be used for payment if they were issued by UNT and are valid for the relevant guided tour. Vouchers issued by third parties shall only be valid if expressly agreed by UNT.
5. Rebooking for group tours; change of billing address
5.1. The Visitor and/or Customer shall have no right to change the date of the guided tour, time, place of departure and destination of the guided tour (rebooking) after the contract has been signed. Should the Visitor and/or Customer wish to rebook, UNT may charge a rebooking fee up to 48 hours prior to the start of the guided tour. In the absence of a specific provision to the contrary prior to the rebooking confirmation, the rebooking fee shall amount to 15,00 EUR per rebooking operation. The Visitor and/or Customer shall reserve the right to prove that the costs incurred by UNT due to the rebooking are much lower than the agreed rebooking fee. In such case, the Visitor and/or Customer shall only pay the reduced fee.
5.2. In the event of a termination at a later stage, a cancellation fee amounting to the full remuneration agreed shall be due. The regulations covered in para. 7.2. shall apply mutatis mutandis. The above provisions shall not apply in cases where rebooking requests entail only minor cost.
5.3. The above provisions shall apply mutatis mutandis if the billing address has changed, which entails a processing fee of 5,00 EUR per modification.
6. Non-use of services
6.1. There shall be no right to repayment of amounts already paid if the Visitor and/or Customer fail to use the agreed services, in full or in part, for reasons beyond the tour guide's or UNT's control, particulary in the case of no-show for the trip and/or the tour without terminating the contract, although the tour guide would be able and prepared to provide the relevant services.
6.2. The agreed remuneration shall be subject to statutory regulations (Sect. 615(1) and (2) of the German Civil Code (BGB)):
a) The agreed remuneration shall be paid without entailing a right of the guided tour being provided at a later date.
b) The tour guide, however, shall deduct from his/her remuneration any expenses saved as well as any remuneration that s/he should receive due to any other use of the services agreed or due to the malicious intent to fail to obtain such remuneration.
7. Termination of or withdrawal from the contract by the Visitor and/or the Customer in case of group tours
7.1. After signing the contract, the Visitor and/or Customer may terminate the contract concluded with the tour guide free of charge up to 48 hours prior to the agreed commencement of services.
7.2. If the contract is terminated lather than 48 hours prior to the start of the tour or at the very day of the tour, the full remuneration agreed shall be paid. The tour guide, however, shall deduct from his/her remuneration any expenses saved as well as any remuneration that s/he should receive due to any other use of the services agreed or due to the malicious intent to fail to obtain such remuneration. Any expenses saved with regard to additional services associated with the tour, including but not limited to expenditure on bus transports, food, drink, entry fees etc. shall only be deducted by the tour guide and/or UNT from the remuneration to be paid by the Visitor and/or Customer if there is a legal or contractual right to claim a repayment and/or refund from the service providers and if such repayment/refund can actually be acquired.
7.3. The above deadlines shall be governed by the receipt of the notice of termination sent by the Visitor and/or Customer at UNT's published and/or communicated business hours. Any notice of termination shall be sent to UNT acting as representative of the tour guide. By way of derogation from these provisions, the tour guide shall be contacted directly by phone between Friday 7 pm and Monday 9:30 am
7.4. The legal and contractual termination rights of the Visitor and/or Customer, including any other legal warranty claims, in case of a defective performance by the tour guide and/or defective agency services provided by UNT shall remain unaffected by the above regulations to terminate the contract.
8. Liability of the tour guide and UNT; insurances
8.1. For more information on the liability of UNT, please refer to para. 1.3. and 1.4. of these General Terms and Conditions.
8.2. Any liability of the tour guide for damages that are not arising from the infringement of a material contractual obligation, the fulfilment of which is essential for the due execution of the tour guiding contract or the infringement of which jeopardises the purpose of the contract or leads to injury to life, body or heath of the Visitor shall be excluded provided that such damage has not been caused intentionally or through grave negligence by the tour guide or one of his/her legal representative or agents.
8.3. The tour guide shall not be held liable for services, actions or failures of catering outlets, institutions, operators of tourist attractions or other sites to be visited during a guided tour unless a culpable breach of duty by the tour guide has caused the damage or contributed to it.
8.4. The services agreed in the contract shall only include insurances in favour of the Visitor and/or Customer if expressly agreed. The Visitor and/or the Customer are strongly advised to take out a cancellation insurance policy.
9. Tour hours, duties of the Visitor and/or Customer
9.1. The Visitor and/or Customer shall be required to provide a mobile phone number at the time of booking or in good time before the agreed group tour date to be contacted in the event of exceptional circumstances. As a rule, UNT shall also provide the mobile number of the tour guide to the Visitor and/or the designated contact person.
9.2. Visitors shall be on time for group tours. If the Visitor is running late, s/he shall undertake to notify the tour guide of his/her late arrival by the time of the agreed tour start, at the latest, and indicate the estimated time of arrival. The tour guide shall have the right to refuse to postpone the start of the tour if such postponement is objectively impossible or unreasonable; this is in particular the case if such delay may prevent the tour guide from providing any following tours or keep other compelling professional or personal appointments. Any delay of more than 30 minutes shall give the tour guide the right to cancel the tour. In this case, the tour guide's right to remuneration shall be subject to the provisions set out in para. 6 of these General Terms and Conditions.
9.3. The Visitor and/or the contact person acting on behalf of the group customer shall be obliged to notify the tour guide immediately of any defects of the tour or the agreed services and ask him/her to remedy the defects. Any claims arising from the defective or incomplete performance of the tour guide shall only remain valid if the failure to provide such notification of defect was not the fault of the Visitor.
9.4. The Visitor and/or the Customer shall only have the right to discontinue the tour if the performance of the tour guide is extremely defective and these defects are not remedied even if a notification of defects has been provided. No refund can be claimed if such discontinuation and/or termination is not justified. This shall be without prejudice to any legal warranty claims of the Visitor and/or Customer in case of a defective performance of the tour guide.
10. Special arrangements in connection with pandemics (including but not limited to Covid-19)
10.1. The parties shall agree that the agreed performance by the tour guide shall always be provided according to and in compliance with the official regulations and requirements applicable at the time of performance.
10.2. The client shall agree to comply with appropriate usage regulations or restrictions provided by the tour guide when using his/her services (including but not limited to wearing a mouth-and-nose cover).
11. Place of jurisdiction; information on dispute resolution for consumers
11.1. Referring to the German Act on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Consumer Matters, UNT points out that UNT does not participate in any voluntary dispute resolution mechanisms for consumers. UNT shall duly inform the Visitor if such dispute resolution mechanism became mandatory after these General Terms and Conditions for contracts and agency services went to press. For all service contracts based on electronic legal transactions, UNT refers to the European Online Dispute Resolution platform https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.
11.2. Jurisdiction shall be conferred to the Courts of the Visitor and/or the Customer if the tour guide and/or UNT bring a claim against the Visitor and/or Customer.
11.3. If the Customer is a merchant or legal entity under public or private law or if the Visitor and/Customer have no general place of jurisdiction in Germany, the parties shall submit any claims brought by the tour guide and/or UNT to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of their registered office.
© These General Terms and Conditions are protected by copyright.
Noll | Hütten | Dukic law firm, Munich | Stuttgart, 2018 – 2020
Acting as an agent for guided tours:
Ulm/Neu-Ulm Touristik GmbH
represented by its Managing Director Wolfgang Dieterich
Neue Straße 45
89073 Ulm
phone: +49 731 161 2801
email: unt@tourismus.ulm.de