Tucan Travel 

We have done five wonderful trips with Tucan in the past and had booked a sixth. The pandemic hit and we got our money back from every other company but Tucan. Gut wrenching.
We have had no communication about the $1600 deposit that we, as seniors on a pension, paid. That is a lot of money for us to lose.
I can’t believe the company lived hand to mouth, did not have reserves to refund good folk their deposits.
Going into receivership is a cop out. Come on, Tucan hierarchy, do the decent thing by those who supported you for years.
Wendy and Rod Davenhill, New Zealand

Tucan shut their business in Feb,2021.
I asked these people to return my money way back in October,2020. They said they will give me a full refund in February,2021 when they very well knew they were going to shut their business!
I feel absolutely cheated!
Since the payment was made early in 2018(more than 560 days) bank is not back dating the amount. Tucan sands a link to claim money via ABTOT. The claims are just closed as they want me to get my money via my bank! So basically running in circles.
I bet the SHAMELESS owners/entrepreneur will come back after the pandemic with new business! There was no intention to pay any money back and why will they pay out of their pockets!

Tucan Travel was very helpful and accessible whenever I had questions during my planning stage . The tour itself was wonderful, everything I hoped for....very well organised, fascinating and stimulating. We were beautifully looked after by our knowledgeable and friendly local guide.

Due to COVID, our package holiday to Japan was cancelled. This was in March 2020, and we have yet to receive a refund for this. It is quite distressing to have had barely any human communication besides standard email responses when you hold over £5000 of my money which would have been invaluable during the turmoil of 2020 / 2021. Instead, you have withheld it and have caused me a great deal of anxiety in an uncertain, stressful time.

You offered a voucher, which we have made it clear that we do not accept these vouchers and require, as stated by the law, that we are owed a full refund. Your company has confirmed to ABTA that you would be returning it to us. Yet still, here we are, waiting for it. This has not stopped you from sending us marketing emails, so you clearly know we exist, but with these inappropriate marketing emails this we are unclear as to if you will honour your promise to ABTA.

We will not be using Tucan Travel for any future holidays and will only be in contact to continue to request that our money is rightfully returned us. I advise that all other travellers choose to follow our example, lest you too have your money stolen.

I always booked with great pleasure a trip via tucan travel.
Unfortunately as of covid our last booking was cancelled. My deposit became a voucher.
As i live in the netherlands and there is still covid problem all over i asked for a refund after a year of the voucher (my deposit of 700 euro). Unfortunately tucan travel does not want to give this now and say i have to use the voucher behore september.
I can not book yet so i probably looser this money.
A shame. It would be nice if they would say to give a refund or that the voucher will be valid for ever so i can book later if the time is there to book again a safe trip.

Do not trust this company. They will try and steal your money in any possible way. The tour guides are constantly scheming on how to trick you into paying for something and then they keep the money to themselves to make some extra on the side. Incredibly unprofessional company and will never travel with them again.

This Cuba journey was one of the best short tours that I have made with a tour company Organisation was tops and the itinerary could not be faulted. Tuscan Travel selected accommodation that allowed an insight into the Cubans' life. The hospitality was first class. I've kept note of other tours being offered and hope to travel again soon

Went to Thailand July 2019. Had a fantastic experience with Tucan. Nice group too, very helpful leader

Absolutely ridiculous costumer service, they’ve cancelled 2 of my trips , and refusing to refund my money . As they cancelled my trips i have the right to get refunded. They don’t even let me cancel the trip with loss of deposit as they saying in this case they still offering vouchers.

Presumably, now that over 22 million people worldwide have contracted Covid 19, Tucan Travel, as a global tour operator, feel extremely embarrassed and regretful about backing up their authorised representative who advised his tour group (in writing) that the FCO's advice for travellers returning to the UK from Vietnam was "BIASED" and "OVERLY CAUTIOUS" and who went out of his way to block Government-issued health advice from being shared with them by fellow travellers.

Instead of unequivocally distancing themselves from this ridiculous nonsense, they claimed that it would be "morally wrong and illegal" to do so, and backed him up fully. They could have deescalated the complaint very easily, but instead, they chose to launch a hateful public diatribe against me (see Tucan Travel's reply to my review below, accusing me of "bias against the over 50s" and a "personal vendetta": no, Tucan Travel, no personal vendetta or problem with the over-50s: I simply take issue with those in the tourism industry who choose to share dangerous opinions about Covid 19 during a crisis that has killed so many people, and a corporate culture which fails to condemn these comments when they are flagged).

Perhaps Tucan Travel have now had time to reflect that backing up this individual's comments wasn't particularly good PR. Maybe it seemed, as millions more people continued to contract the virus, that failing to distance themselves from the idea that governments were being "biased" against certain Asian countries by advising against travel to them hadn't been the best strategy. The result of this extreme embarrassment (so embarrassed are they, in fact, that they have insisted that individuals' names be removed from the reviews) has been to attempt to BLOCK the reviews below which give a line by line transcript of the comments made about Covid 19 and an account of how the company handled the complaint about them. Unfortunately for Tucan Travel, Trustpilot is a platform which invites free expression, positive and negative, and has done the right thing in disallowing this abysmal company's attempt to block reviews which embarrass them and/or which they do not like. As such, it is now recorded below for everyone to see that an employee of this company described the UK government's response to the pandemic as "overly cautious" and "biased", and that the person in charge of receiving feedback has taken absolutely zero issue with that. I repeat: Tucan Travel DOES NOT HAVE ANY ISSUE WITH THOSE COMMENTS.

Up to you whether you feel you'd like to part with your hard earned cash to these people! But as a side point, be aware also that you are of a female or LGBT persuasion, you may not feel comfortable on these tours, unless you want to see camp impressions being done by the guide, and hear references made to "women trailing around shops while men follow with a credit card". Yes, Tucan know about these comments too, and no, they won't do anything, because the person who said them is, according to them, "over 50". It seems that, according to Tucan Travel, being over 50 is a get out of jail free card for just about everything, ranging from denying the risk of Covid 19 to slating women! Oh yes, also: if you're over-50, it's acceptable to leave customers behind on small deserted Vietnamese islands. Awful. Just awful.

I have travelled with Tucan many times and had a very good opinion of them until now when they cancelled my trip and refuse to pay the deposit back, instead offering potentially worthless voucher.
I will take up the issue with them but I am very disappointed and will not be using this company again. Many of us are in difficult situation because of Covid-19.

After posting the review on Trustpilot, the deposit issue was resolved pretty much straightaway. Thank you.

Following a trip to japan being cancelled due to covid which I was pleased about I spent months trying for a refund. The only number I could find to speak with them were the sales team who were very helpful and polite. I would then get messages back from customer services via email or TourRader, never by phone! The reply’s from customer services were never helpful and were threatening in which they told me not to contact them again and if I went down legal means to get my refund they would counter sue (just to say I hadn’t thought of doing that until they said). I then contacted ABTA and TourRader who both looked into this for me and it was only then Tucan Travel refunded me....
Customer service was really shocking and has put me off using Tucan Travel again...

Really enjoyable two week tour of Costa Rica in April 2019. Nice sized group and well organised. Only one hotel in Cahuita was disappointing. Guide and company notified.
Straight onto 5 week tour of South America. Extremely good local guide from Lima. Really well organised tour, of varying sizes as people joined for different parts of the tour.

Great tours, terrible shame, no one is happy. But it gives you no right to cheat your customers in the way that Tucan Travel has done.

Our holiday was cancelled a long way out by Tucan, which we accepted. We were then offered a voucher, which we were happy to use to support the delay of our holiday. We were then shocked to see the prices and the level of escalation that had been applied, well beyond the marginal and highly time-constrained benefit of the voucher.

On requesting an explanation, we were told (1) its peak time weeks (2) it's down to foreign exchange changes. The reality was; (1) it was exactly the same week as our original booking and (2) the FX change was less than 2%.

Unfortunately, this demonstrates their whole approach. Ignore the truth of the argument, off the shelf refutals and an 'our need is greater than yours' attitude.

Such a shame, for what I'm sure was a genuine and valuable business, who looked like they have been offering great holiday experiences. But nothing justifies you cheating your customer base.

Its an awful shame while I sit here on this dreary day knowing that I could have been climbing the peaks of Machu Picchu. Alas it is not worth dwelling at least I got my hard earned savings back.....oh wait! Tucan travel have decided to keep that and I was still paying off my deposit? the tour had not even been confirmed when they cancelled but they decided they needed my money more than me? Even though I do not get what I purchased. With Tucans refusal to provide a refund back to me and with their defensive approach which seems to be standard amongst other would be travellers I do not want to travel with them in the future. Now wait here for another copy and paste, stock standard reply!

I wrote my original review back in May 2020 when they were insisting their vouchers fully met the refund conditions, and when they were claiming that deposits weren't refundable.

They claimed that they had spent deposits on internal flights and hotels for the tour (which was reasonable) so I requested the details of those flights and hotels so we could use them and do the tour ourselves (they were our flights and hotel bookings after all).

After that they gave in and refunded our deposit in full, which given their financial position at the time must have been difficult. We always said we would be happy to wait a while for a refund (a year or more if necessary) but they transferred the money over straight away.

To be honest I think they were sick of dealing with me and I think Responsible Travel also got involved and put a bit of pressure on them.

They came good even though it took a bit of time, me sending a few snotty emails, getting a bit annoyed with their responses and posting strategic reviews online.

Fair's fair, I always said if they did the right thing then we'd be happy to re-book with them, and I stand by that. Might not be until 2022 but Tucan will get first refusal from us when the time's come.

Edit: Just found out that they're gone out of business. Shame.

Sri Lanka is amazing. But speaking about tucan travel and bow the trip was organised.. it was an average holiday. We often got taken to places where the only purpose was let us spend money, the classic overproced shops for tourists. Restaurants? Same. Either super cheap and not good at all or restaurant that gave a free meal to the guide.

A part from that the experience and places were mostly great but many places or restaurant could be avoided replaced as just a waste of time/trap for tourists. Which I would not expect from an organised tour

PS after reply: we rarely had free time, and no options were given for food restaurants. Always decided by the guide, either super cheap and not good or were the guide had free meal. Not best food experience.

Also the touristic locations, some of them were just traps for tourists, not expected by a guide, and honestly I didn’t paid for waisting time. I wonder if this is all linked to low paid guides?

They are using this time to steal from people. There is not ambiguity, what they are doing is wrong and against the T & C. Not to mention their customer service approach is defensive, rude, and full of lies in an attempt to manipulate the situation so they can use the public's money as a personal loan system.

My husband and I had a trip planned with Tucan in June for Eastern Europe, originally I felt confident with this tour group due to great reviews and positive feedback from a friend who was a travel agent and had booked trips with Tucan. I was informed if there were any travel advisories we would have a full refund including deposit. March 16 Tucan changed their policy so instead of a refund we have been given a credit. I realize Covid has caused financial strain with various companies but this is illegal and very dishonest. If Tucan had honoured their original contract and granted a full refund of our deposit I would have happily booked with them again but we no longer have faith in this organization and would never book ! I don’t expect a reply back as my review is not positive. Also note in previous reviews the only response Tucan has given to reviews are those invited by Tucan Travel to leave a review. I encourage future travellers to not book with this company due to poor business and ethical standards. Good luck in maintaining present and future clients

Fantastic trip. The Tucan Travel trip had a great amount of variety. Extremely well run - I felt that our guide was fantastic in explaining what we would be doing and plenty of history.
The accommodation works well too.
Had a great time and look forward to the next one.