Online booking for ski and snowboard instructors
Your customer is in Sydney or Hong Kong, booking in August for January, and they will pay before they fly or not at all.
Half-day and full-day event types, paid online in yen, bookable a year ahead, with a tiered refund policy and the green season closed with date overrides.
A four-month business booked twelve months out#
Instructors lose money in two specific ways. The first is the guest who emails in September, gets a reply, is never heard from again, and whose week you half-held anyway. The second is the group that books, does not pay, and cancels in December when the date could have been sold three times over.
Both are the same problem: a booking that costs nothing is not a booking. In a season this short, every unpaid hold is a real loss.
The setup to start from#
A four-month season, booked months ahead from other countries and other time zones, sold in half-days and full days rather than hours.
| Duration | Half day (3 hours) and full day (6 hours) as two event types |
|---|---|
| Minimum notice | 48 hours |
| Bookable up to | 365 days, because guests book with their flights |
| Max bookings per day | One group per instructor per day |
| Location | In person, meeting point in the description |
| Payment | Paid online in yen — an overseas guest who has not paid is not a booking |
| Cancellation policy | Full refund 14 days before, 50% inside 7 days, none inside 48 hours |
Worth asking on the booking form: Ability level of each person · Ages · Which resort and where are you staying? · Do you need rental gear?
Niseko, Hakuba and Nozawa run almost entirely on advance bookings from Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Close the whole green season with date overrides rather than leaving an empty calendar that looks broken.
Paid in yen, up front#
Business Box takes card payment in Japanese yen through your own Stripe account, and the lesson is only confirmed once the payment clears. An overseas guest who abandons the checkout releases the day automatically.
Yen is handled as a whole-number currency, so ¥45,000 is ¥45,000 rather than something mangled into decimals. Connecting Stripe
A refund policy that matches a short season#
Full refund fourteen days out, fifty per cent inside seven days, nothing inside forty-eight hours. Generous while you can still resell the day, firm when you cannot. It is shown to the guest before they book and the exact amount before they cancel.
Close the green season properly#
An empty calendar in July looks like a broken website. Use date overrides to close from the end of the season to the start of the next, so anyone who lands on the page in summer sees a closed diary rather than a fault. Date overrides
Ask what decides the lesson#
Ability level per person, ages, which resort, where they are staying, and whether they need rental gear. That is the difference between meeting a family at the right lift at the right time and spending forty minutes finding them.
Getting started#
- Sign in at app.marubox.jp with Google or Microsoft. There is no card and no trial clock.
- Create an event type with the settings above. Event types explained
- Connect your calendar so your season never gets double booked. Google · Outlook
- Set your real hours, and close Japanese public holidays in one tick. Availability
- Put the link in your bio, or the widget on your site. Adding it to your website
Common questions
Can guests overseas pay in Japanese yen?
Yes. Payment runs through your own Stripe account in yen, and a guest anywhere can pay by card. The lesson is confirmed only once the payment succeeds, so an abandoned checkout releases the day.
How do I close the calendar out of season?
Add date overrides with no hours for the out-of-season dates in your availability schedule. Visitors then see a closed diary rather than a page that looks broken.
Do guests see times in their own time zone?
Yes, automatically. Someone booking from Sydney sees your Japan availability converted to their time, and the confirmation shows both.
Can I charge different rates for half day and full day?
Yes — make them two event types with their own durations and prices. They sit side by side on your booking page.
Set this up in about ten minutes
Business Box is free for as long as you like, with no card required — booking pages, Google and Outlook calendar sync, availability, Japanese public holidays and the website widget. Taking card payment for bookings is ¥1,200 a month, tax included, with no commission on what you sell.
Last reviewed 28 September 2026.