Operator Terms

The BukNau platform (buknau.com, related apps and services, “BukNau”, “we”, “us”) is operated by BukNau Holdings Limited, a company registered in Hong Kong. These terms are an agreement between BukNau Holdings Limited and the business on whose behalf an operator account is created (“you”, the “operator”).

The person who accepts these terms confirms they are authorised to bind the business. Team members you add act for the business, and the business is responsible for what they do on BukNau. Our Privacy Policy forms part of these terms.

BukNau promotes your listings to travellers, lets them reserve and pay you directly, generates the booking documents, and carries messages between you and them. You are an independent business, not our employee, agent, partner, franchisee or supplier. We are not a party to any booking.

Every booking made through the platform is a contract directly between you and the traveller. You are the merchant of record for every sale: you set the price, you receive the money, you deliver the service, and you are responsible for the tax on it.

To list on BukNau you must be a genuine, lawfully operating business in Papua New Guinea or Solomon Islands. Before your listings can take bookings we require your business details, the bank account that receives payments, and your taxpayer identification number (an IRC TIN in Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands equivalent). We may ask for licences, permits or insurance certificates relevant to what you sell, and may suspend listings until they are provided.

You warrant that everything you give us is accurate and that you will keep it current. You are solely responsible for holding, and keeping current, every licence, permit, registration and approval your services require under the laws of Papua New Guinea or Solomon Islands, including tourism, transport and maritime requirements.

Your listings must describe your services accurately: photos you have the right to use, honest descriptions, and correct prices including tax, deposits and extras. You control availability through your BukNau calendar; keep it current, including for bookings you take outside BukNau, so that a traveller cannot reserve a date you cannot honour.

Listings on BukNau are bookable instantly at the listed price. Once a traveller reserves and pays within the payment window, you must provide the service as listed at that price. Bait pricing, listing services you cannot deliver, or asking a traveller to pay more than the booking total are grounds for removal and suspension.

A booking link you share with a customer opens your public listing; the same prices, availability and terms apply as for any other traveller.

When a traveller reserves, their dates are held on your calendar and they are shown the amount to transfer, your bank account and a booking reference, together with the payment window for that booking. The window is shown on the booking and in the emails to both sides.

Travellers pay you directly by bank transfer. BukNau does not receive, hold or process the money and is not a payment processor. The bank account on your profile must be your business’s own account; you are responsible for keeping it correct, and for any payment that goes astray because it was not.

You must check your bank account and confirm each transfer on BukNau promptly, and in any case within the payment window shown on the booking. Confirming a transfer confirms the booking and issues the traveller’s tax invoice. Confirm only amounts you have actually received, in full. A booking whose payment is not confirmed within the window is released; if the traveller paid late or paid short, the booking page lets you decide whether to honour it.

You must not ask a traveller to pay to a different account, to pay outside BukNau for a booking made on it, or to pay a different amount from the booking total.

BukNau generates the commercial documents for each booking from your business details and the booking: the pro forma invoice, the tax invoice on confirmation, and where you agree credit terms with an organisation, that organisation’s monthly invoice. These documents carry your name, address and taxpayer identification number and are issued by you, not by BukNau.

You are responsible for the accuracy of the details they carry, for accounting for the tax shown, and for meeting your obligations to the Internal Revenue Commission of Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands Inland Revenue Division. BukNau does not calculate, withhold or remit tax on your behalf beyond showing the tax you have configured on your prices.

You set your own cancellation policy on BukNau and it is shown to every traveller before they pay. You must apply it consistently. Where a refund is due under your policy or under law, you pay it promptly and directly to the traveller’s bank account; BukNau records the refund on the booking for both sides but does not pay refunds on your behalf.

You must send each refund, and mark it as sent on BukNau, by the deadline shown for it in Billing. We remind you before the deadline. While a refund is overdue, your listings, booking link and event tickets stop taking new bookings, and the traveller is told we are following it up. Bookings you already have are not affected, and new bookings resume as soon as the refund is marked as sent.

A deposit you take is security against damage or loss, not part of your price. You must return it as stated on the booking once the service is complete, less only itemised deductions for damage recorded on the booking within the time allowed there. A deposit is returned in full when a traveller does not arrive.

You may record a traveller who neither arrives nor cancels as a no-show, within the time allowed on the booking. If you cancel a confirmed booking you must refund everything the traveller paid, without deduction.

You may offer an organisation credit terms on BukNau, so that its members’ bookings are billed on a monthly invoice instead of paid before travel. Credit is your decision and your risk: BukNau does not guarantee, collect or insure any amount an organisation owes you. Bookings made against a purchase order are confirmed when you verify the order; the platform tracks what is owed and lets you record what is paid.

Traveller details shared with you (names, contact details, booking information and, where a service requires it, identity documents through a short-lived link) may be used only to deliver the booked service and to meet your legal obligations. They must not be sold, shared with anyone else, or used for unsolicited marketing. Keep them secure and delete them when you no longer need them.

You are responsible for the safety of your services: vehicles roadworthy and licensed, vessels seaworthy and properly equipped, guides competent, premises safe. You must hold insurance appropriate to your services (such as public liability, passenger or marine cover) where it is available and required, and you confirm that nothing about your operation exposes travellers to undisclosed risk.

Treat travellers with respect. Messages and reviews must be honest. You must not review your own business or arrange reviews.

You keep ownership of the photos, text and other content you upload. You give BukNau a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to display, resize and reproduce it to promote your listings and the platform, including in search results, emails and marketing, for as long as you are listed and for a reasonable period afterwards for records. You warrant you have the right to grant that licence.

Listing on BukNau and taking bookings through it is free at the date of these terms. If we introduce a fee for any service, it will be set out in a fee schedule that you accept on the platform before it applies to you, and it will never be deducted from a traveller’s payment, which goes to you in full.

You can stop listing at any time. Bookings you have already confirmed must still be honoured or lawfully cancelled and refunded, and travellers must still be able to reach you about them.

We may suspend or remove listings or accounts for breach of these terms, fraudulent or unsafe conduct, failure to confirm payments or honour bookings, repeated traveller complaints, or legal risk. Where practical we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond.

The platform is provided “as is”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, BukNau Holdings Limited is not liable for lost profits, lost bookings, or any indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the platform, and our total liability to you is limited to the greater of the fees you have paid to BukNau Holdings Limited in the 12 months before the claim, or PGK 250.

You will indemnify BukNau Holdings Limited against claims, losses and costs (including legal costs) arising from your services, your listings, your breach of these terms or of law, including claims by travellers relating to a service you provided or failed to provide.

We may update these terms as the platform develops. Each version carries the date shown above. When a new version applies, the owner of your account will be asked to accept it the next time they sign in; continuing to list after that means the business accepts it.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the courts of Hong Kong have non-exclusive jurisdiction. Your obligations to travellers and to regulators under the laws of Papua New Guinea or Solomon Islands are unaffected. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.

BukNau Holdings Limited · operators@buknau.com.