Customer Terms and Conditions

Please read the Terms and Conditions of Use carefully. You must take note of and accept them before you can use the platform. The Terms and Conditions of Use can be printed out and stored from the browser.

1. The platform

Guide Base Ltd ("Guide Base") runs the website at www.guidebase.com (the "website") and related mobile apps ("apps") for various platforms (the website and apps being jointly referred to hereinafter as the "platform"). The platform enables its users to book certified outdoor guides and other professional outdoor activity providers (hereinafter referred to generally as "guide(s)"). In addition, the platform provides thematically related services, such as weather information, access to webcams, etc. However, the focus is on helping to find and arrange guides for outdoor pursuits (hereinafter referred to as "trips").

The guides who can be booked using the platform are not employed by Guide Base, but individual professionals who act independently and on their own account.

Guide Base itself does not offer any outdoor guide services. Guide Base acts solely as an intermediary between users of the platform and guides. Consequently, any agreement relating to a tour is formed only between the user of the platform and the guide. That means only the guide, and not Guide Base in any way, shape or form, is responsible for preparing and holding the tour properly. Guide Base merely enables conclusion of an agreement between the user of the platform and the mountain guide.

Guides who have registered on the platform can use it to offer trips that they have designed themselves and that their certification authorizes them to hold. They can also offer their services for trips tailored to the wishes of platform users provided their certification authorizes them to hold the requested trip.

Users who conclude an agreement on a tour with a Guide must be of age in accordance with the legal regulations applicable to them when they conclude the agreement. All users are themselves responsible for making sure they have the necessary physical condition and health to take part in and complete a booked trip and have sufficient tour experience. Adventure trips, of whatever nature, generally entail significant physical strain and risks which may result in injury or even death; the user is aware of that and is willing to run such risks when concluding an agreement on a trip.

2. Scope of application of these Terms and Conditions of Use

These Terms and Conditions of Use shall apply exclusively to the business relationship between Guide Base and the user. Differing general standard terms and conditions of the user shall not be acknowledged. This shall also apply if Guide Base does not explicitly object to their inclusion.

These Terms and Conditions of Use do not govern the agreement on a trip to be concluded between the user and guide and so do not apply to that relationship between the guide and user. Instead, it is a matter for the user to negotiate and conclude such an agreement with the guide.

3. Conclusion of a Usage Agreement

3.1 The user's contractual partner is Guide Base.

3.2 The agreement shall be concluded in English.

3.3 The user must conclude an agreement with Guide Base on use of the platform ("Usage Agreement") on the basis of these Terms and Conditions of Use in order to be able to use the platform. The Usage Agreement shall be formed by an offer being made and accepted. Users shall submit an offer as follows:

- If users have a Facebook account, they can log on to the plat-form using it. In this case, Guide Base obtains users' first name and surname, their e-mail address and the profile photos they have stored on Facebook.

- However, users can also use the platform by opening their own account on the platform. To do that, they must specify their first name and surname, their e-mail address and a telephone number and can optionally upload a profile photo.

- Users can amend mistakes in their inputs at any time by typing in the correct details. Before the form is finally sent off, all the inputs are displayed again in a confirmation window and can also be corrected there.

Guide Base shall not pass on this user data to third parties and shall use it only for running the platform.

- Users then send their offer to conclude a Usage Agreement over the platform to Guide Base by clicking on the button in question in the registration form. Guide Base shall immediately send users an e-mail to notify them that their offer has been received, along with these Terms and Conditions of Use and the Data Privacy Policy. This e-mail shall also constitute acceptance of the user's offer, with the result that the Usage Agreement between the user and Guidebase is formed when this e-mail is received.

3.4 Users must enter truthful and complete registration data. They shall not have a right to conclude a Usage Agreement. Only users who are of age in accordance with the legal regulations applicable to them (in England: persons who are 18 and above) may register on the platform. In individual cases, Guide Base may ask users to furnish proof of their date of birth. Users must also be healthy and physically fit enough to complete the adventure trips they intend to undertake. By sending their offer, users state that they fulfill that requirement.

3.5 Guide Base shall store the text of the Usage Agreement after it has been concluded; users can access it over the platform at any time.

4. Use of the platform

4.1 The users shall keep their profile data up-to-date at all times. In particular, changes to their stored e-mail address and telephone number must be made right away.

4.2 The users shall keep their access data for the platform, in particular their password, secret under all circumstances. They shall be obliged to notify Guide Base immediately if they have grounds to believe that their access data is being misused.

4.3 The agreement to hold a trip (the "Guide Agreement") shall be formed solely between the guide and the user of the platform. Guide Base shall not be involved in this agreement, but shall only mediate conclusion of it. This shall be done as follows:

- The user of the platform can send requests for trips to guides using the platform.

- The mountain guide who receives the request shall check it and send the user an offer via the platform.

- The user can accept this offer, reject it or request the guide over the platform to submit an amended offer, which the user can in turn either accept or reject. If the user accepts the offer, the Guide Agreement is formed.

The contents of the Guide Agreement, in particular relating to remuneration, shall be defined solely between the user of the platform and the guide. The responsibility for preparing and holding the tour shall lie solely with the guide, not with Guide Base.

Guides shall be obliged to provide users of the platform who request a trip with all the information required to conclude the agreement and in the necessary manner and, in particular, to inform said users properly about any right of withdrawal.

4.4. The user shall notify Guide Base of the conclusion of a Guide Agreement and any cancellation of it.

4.5. The users may conclude a Guide Agreement (Section 4.3) with guides who contact them pursuant to their request about a trip only using this platform. This shall also apply to future bookings of the same guide.

4.6. Users may conclude agreements only for trips that they can complete without health problems and with their level of proficiency and fitness. Users alone shall bear the risks as regards their level of proficiency and fitness.

4.7. Users are aware that any outdoor sport entails considerable risks (sudden changes in the weather, falling rocks, precipices, crevasses, avalanches, etc.). Users are themselves responsible for doing all they can to minimize such risks. In particular, users must ensure they have the adequate and necessary equipment on the booked trip in coordination with the guide.

4.8. On the booked trip, the users shall obey the instructions of the guide, comply with the pertinent legislation and official requirements and in particular ensure they protect nature and the environment.

4.9. After completing a trip, users can post a report (text/photo) about their trip on the platform. The report must be written in a fair and objective manner and should contain information that is helpful to other users. Guide Base shall be authorized to delete reports without prior notice is the review is deemed to be untrustworthy. 

4.10. Guide Base shall endeavor to maintain the platform's availability without interruptions and to send data that is free of errors. Howev-er, the nature of the Internet means that Guide Base cannot guarantee unrestricted access to the platform at all times. Access to it may be interrupted or restricted for a short time and without prior notice for technical reasons (e.g. maintenance work) or due to force majeure (e.g. power outage).

5. Blocking of an account

5.1. Guide Base shall be authorized to block users' profile and access to the platform if and for as long as there are concrete indications that the users are not complying with their obligations under the Usage Agreement or are misusing access to the platform.

5.2. Guide Base shall be authorized to block users' profile and access to the platform definitively if, in the judgment of Guide Base, that is necessary to protect the platform's functionality and/or other platform users, in particular if

- users have furnished incorrect profile data, in particular an in-correct date of birth;

- users have disclosed their access data for the platform to a third party;

- the users have repeatedly received negative ratings (3 stars or less) from guides who have conducted a tour with them and blocking of them is necessary to safeguard the interests of other platform users or protect users themselves against injury or death;

6. Remuneration

The user shall not owe Guide Base any remuneration for use of the platform in accordance with the Usage Agreement and for brokering trips.

7. Term and termination

7.1. The Usage Agreement shall be concluded for an indefinite period of time. It can be terminated ordinarily by users at any time and by Guide Base with a period of notice of two weeks. The right to terminate it without notice for an important reason shall remain unaffected.

7.2. Notice of termination shall not be valid unless given in text form (e.g. by email). E-mail shall be sufficient.

8. Liability

8.1. Guide Base shall be liable for violation of its contractual and non-contractual obligations through willful intent or gross negligence. If it acts with slight negligence, Guide Base shall be liable only

a) for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health,

b) for damage resulting from violation of a cardinal obligation un-der the Usage Agreement (an obligation whose proper fulfillment constitutes a condition for implementation of the agreement and on the fulfillment of which the other party to the agreement regularly relies and may rely); in this case, however, liability shall be limited to reimbursement of the foreseeable damage that typically occurs.

8.2. The above limitations on liability shall not apply to claims under the UK Product Liability Law.

9. Ratings

9.1. The users of the platform and the guides shall rate each other after a joint trip has been held. The rating can be viewed by the other platform users and mountain guides.

9.2. The ratings shall not be reviewed by Guide Base.

9.3. The users, like the guides, shall be obliged to provide only truthful and objective details in their ratings. The users, like the guides, shall refrain from making offensive remarks.

9.4. The users, like the guides, shall be obliged to refrain from manipulating the platform's rating system in any way, such as by tasking third parties to submit positive or negative ratings, etc.

9.5. Guide Base shall be authorized at its own discretion to remove ratings that Guide Base believes to be misleading or inappropriate.

10. Rights of use

10.1. The users shall grant Guide Base a simple, transferable and subli-censable right, free of charge and without restriction as to time and place, to use the content they have uploaded, in particular texts, photographs, graphics, etc., in particular:

- to copy and disseminate it in any type of printed work and printed publication

- to copy and disseminate it using digital storage and reproduction media, irrespective of the technical equipment and including all digital and interactive systems, in particular also for reception by stationary and/or mobile devices, regardless of the transmission channel and transmission method

- to store it in and retrieve it from electronic databases, including those of search engines, and electronic data networks, regardless of the storage and transmission technology used for that

- and in each case irrespective of the purpose of its use, including in particular for Guide Base's marketing purposes.

The conferred rights of use shall also include the right to edit the content, in particular in such a way that it can be suitably presented on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.).

10.2. The users pledge to Guide Base that they have the required rights to grant the rights in accordance with Section 10.1 and that Guide Base does not infringe any rights of third parties through the types of use permitted pursuant to Section 10.1. The user shall indemnify Guide Base against such claims by third parties.

10.3. Guide Base shall be authorized at its own discretion to remove ratings that Guide Base believes to be misleading or inappropriate.

11. Data protection, consent

Guide Base collects, processes and uses data of the users as specified in the Data Privacy Policy.

12. Final provisions

12.1. Guide Base reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions of Use if and insofar as that it is necessary due to circumstances that Guide Base could not foresee and over which Guide Base has no influence.

12.2. Guide Base shall give the users advance notice of amendments. If the user does not object to the amendments within 6 weeks of re-ceiving said notice, the amended Terms and Conditions of Use shall be deemed to have been agreed.

12.3. Guide Base shall be authorized to enlist the services of third parties to fulfill its obligations under the Usage Agreement and to exercise its rights.

12.4. Guide Base shall be authorized to assign its rights and obligations from this agreement to third parties, in full or in part, subject to prior notice (of at least 4 weeks).

12.5. This Usage Agreement shall be subject to UK law, to the ex-clusion of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the In-ternational Sale of Goods. If the user is a consumer, this shall apply only if, as a result, the user is not deprived of the protection granted by mandatory statutory regulations at the user's place of residence.

Date of these Terms and Conditions of Use: April 24th 2020