Some of the most valuable industry insights don’t come from bold statements or polished conclusions, but from a simple, well-placed question. Let’s talk about cancellations in travel experiences.
When Globick published its Travel Experiences 2025 study, one specific data point immediately stood out. Not because it was presented as a headline, but because it challenged a widely held assumption across the experiences industry: overall cancellation rates appeared lower than what is often assumed.
That observation caught the attention of Douglas Quinby at Arival. Rather than taking the figure at face value — or dismissing it as an outlier — the reaction was the right one: let’s understand what’s behind it.
So we went back to the data together.
Looking beyond the surface number of cancellations in travel experiences
The initial figure was based on a broad dataset of 200,000 experience bookings in 2025, and at an aggregate level it showed an overall cancellation rate of 6%. On its own, that number felt counterintuitive when compared with the perception many have of cancellations in travel experiences.
But cancellations, like most metrics in travel distribution, rarely tell the full story when viewed in isolation.
Once non-cancellable products — such as attraction tickets and city passes — were removed from the dataset, the picture changed quickly. Cancellation rates rose to 11.5%, revealing how much product composition influences any headline figure.
That first adjustment already pointed to a key insight: cancellations in travel experiences are not a uniform phenomenon. What is being sold matters as much as how often it is cancelled.
Booking timing adds another layer
As the analysis went deeper, one of the strongest correlations emerged between cancellation rates and advance booking windows.
Bookings made further in advance showed a much higher likelihood of being cancelled. Channels typically associated with long lead times, such as DMCs and traditional retail travel agencies, reached cancellation rates of up to 19.4%. By contrast, bookings made closer to the experience date — more common in consumer-facing online channels — showed materially lower cancellation rates, around 10.3% once non-cancellable products were excluded.
This distinction is critical because it reframes a common narrative. Flexible cancellation policies and consumer messaging certainly play a role, but timing and commitment are just as influential. Travelers who book closer to the experience date are, quite simply, less likely to cancel.
Why context matters
Seen through this lens, cancellations in travel experiences stop being a single metric and become a behaviour shaped by multiple variables: product type, booking window and commercial context.
When these factors are flattened into one percentage, it becomes easy to draw the wrong conclusions — about performance, risk, or where problems really lie. The deeper analysis shows that what initially looks like a contradiction is, in fact, a matter of missing context.
A broader industry blind spot
One thing became clear throughout this process: despite how frequently cancellations are discussed, there is still very little shared, benchmark-level data available across the industry. As a result, cancellations remain one of the most expensive blind spots, often managed through intuition rather than evidence.
The article published by Arival is valuable not only for the conclusions it draws, but for the process behind it: questioning assumptions, revisiting the data, and adding the context needed to interpret a single number correctly.
You can read the full analysis on Arival, based on Globick’s Travel Experiences 2025 research.