Privacy Policy

 

Effective Date:  This Privacy Policy was last modified on 13 June 2016

 

Trip Guru Limited (“Trip Guru”, “We”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting and respecting our user’s (hereinafter “User”, “You”, “you” and “your” includes any person who accesses this Website or uses the Services (as defined below) logging in through a registered account in www.thetripguru.com) privacy over the personal information provided to us. We want to make your on-line experience satisfying and safe. To enable an appropriate use of this website (hereinafter the “Website”) and the services hereby provided (hereinafter the “Services”), we may collect, process, use and/or disclose your information for different purposes, as herein below detailed.  This privacy policy complies with the data protection principles and provisions pursuant to Hong Kong’s Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap 486). Should the User refuse to provide any of the essential information requested by the Website, then we shall not be able to fulfill any booking requirement.

 

What information do we obtain from you and what do we use it for?

 

Trip Guru collects information on-line primarily to make it easier for you to use our Services. Depending on the Services which you are accessing, you may be requested to provide us with personal information relating to or linked to a specific individual such as name, address, telephone number, email address, and any other that may be requested and provided by the user, such as gender, country of residence and other demographic information (hereinafter “Personal Information”). The disclosure of some additional information required by our Website is crucial and necessary to enable the use of our Services. All these additional information, included but not limited to nationality, turistical interests, credit card and/or Paypal information and/or other payment mechanisms accepted by us, billing details and other personally identifying information, amongst others, shall have the same protection as that given to the Personal Information.

 

By visiting and browsing this Website, you are consenting to the collection, processing, usage and disclosure of your Personal Information as set out in this Privacy Policy and as amended in writing from time to time. We shall collect all kinds of information and multimedia contents uploaded to our the Website, or provided to us while using this Website and information about your use of Website including but not limited to interests, destinations, kind of travels, pictures, videos, usernames, passwords, sign-up location, IP address, Website searches and all booked Services whenever the user account (herein after the “User Account”) is being used. We will use this Personal Information to maintain your User Account, process any requests and to provide you with the best possible Service. Should the User connect to the Website using Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform (hereinafter the “Social Media Platforms”), we may also collect information or other multimedia contents that you have chosen to make publicly available in the Social Media Platforms privacy settings, including Personal Information such as your email addresses and usernames, telephone numbers and other information such as your profile picture and friend lists, and any other personal or other information you have chosen to make publicly available.

 

When visiting the Website, or booking any available Service, we may also collect and process information (which may contain your Personal Information or may contain non-personally identifiable information but nevertheless linked to your Personal Information) including but not limited to:

• copies of correspondence by any available means between you and us, and between you and the Service providers;
• details of your usage of the Website (such as traffic data, location data and length of user sessions);
• feedback on and responses to surveys conducted by Trip Guru relating to the Services and newsletters which may be published, circulated or distributed by Trip Guru;
• Information automatically collected and stored in our server or the server of our third party service provider as a result of you using or accessing this Website (including the log-in name and password for your User Account, your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser information, pages visited, previous or subsequent sites visited).

 

Users shall have the ability to book Services and provide contact as well as travel-related information of other people through our Website. Should a User book a Service for someone else through the Website, this User must have obtained, prior to providing us with this third party’s personal information, the consent of the third party to provide us with their personal information, as any access to view or modify their information will be available only through the User’s account.

 

The disclosure of required information by our Website may be mandatory to enable the full use of our Website, as only registered members shall be able to post travel reviews, participate in discussion forums, email Trip Guru’s content to themselves and others, access members-only newsletters and travel planning contents, and surveys.

 

Whenever a User purchases any Service, we shall collect the information about the said transaction. This includes account and/or authentication information, as well as billing and contact details. We do not store any payment information, such as credit card number or other card information. Secure payment transactions are guaranteed and processed via Braintree Payments payment gateway.

  

 

You may contribute to the Website in a number of different ways, such as writing reviews, uploading photos, filling out your public profile, and rating Services as well as other users' contributions. We may store these contributions (your "Content"), display them to other users, and use them for promotional purposes. You shall note that if you include Personal Information in your Content, the same may be used and viewed by others. We, therefore, shall not be responsible for the information you decide to include in your Content.

 

We will not use your information for any purpose for which you would not reasonably expect us to use it.  Although we may share your information with other companies within the Trip Guru group of companies and to other people who help us to provide our Services to you. We will not sell or disclose your Personal Information to anyone outside these parties for unsolicited marketing purposes.

 

Cookies

 

In order to improve the quality of our Website and Services, we may from time to time send you what is known as a “cookie”.  A cookie is a piece of text, which a website transfers to your computer’s hard drive (but does not access your hard drive). A cookie assists in identifying, for example, whether you have visited our Website on a previous occasion. Only the site that posted the cookie can read it. The use of the Website means that you accept our use of cookies to store your preferences, session information, and collect information on how you visit and access our Website, in order to improve the services provided by us. We also use cookies to analyze and measure the effectiveness of our email communications, website features and offerings, and advertisements. In addition, if you access an online service maintained by us we may use tracing software including Google Analytics (you can learn more about Google Analytics by reading “Google Analytics Terms of Use” and the “Google Privacy Policy”).Most web browsers allow turning cookies off; however, this shall limit the use and full potential of our Website. You should refer to the help menu of your web browser if you require details as to how this can be done.  Please note that the websites to which this Website may be linked may also make use of their own cookies to collect information from you. We also use third-party advertising companies to serve ads while you are visiting our Website and we permit these companies to place and access their own cookies on your computer in the course of serving advertisements. Such advertisers do not have access to the information we collect through our cookies. To cease this targeted online advertising, please contact us at the below detailed mailing address. Other companies' use of their cookies is subject to their own privacy policies and not ours.  You can opt-out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.   To opt out of being tracked by other tracking software that we may use, you will need to manage and delete the cookies using your browser settings.  If your browser is configured to reject all cookies you will be unable to use our Website.

 

Please note that tour providers may have privacy policies that differ from those of Trip Guru. Moreover, tour providers may need additional information (such as health or physical fitness information) to determine whether you can participate in some of the activities we offer within the scope of our Services. You should therefore read and rely upon the relevant tour provider’s privacy policy, and not only on our Privacy Policy.

 

Transfer of Information Overseas

 

The Personal Information and other data we collect from you may be transferred to, processed, and stored in our servers or the servers of our third party services providers. We may from time to time have occasion to hold or transmit your personal information or the information we collect via cookies and tracking software tools overseas, for example to another member of the Trip Guru group of companies or to a third party service provider who assists us in supplying our Services including (but not limited to) data storage solutions, back-up services, IT support, administrative support, telecommunications, computer, payment or other services in connection with the operation of our business,  where this is necessary for the efficient operation of our Service.

 

For users based in Europe this means that we may also send your information to countries outside the European Economic Area.

 

Security precautions

 

Trip Guru will use reasonable endeavors to maintain appropriate physical, electronic and organizational procedures to ensure that your Personal Information and other data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and to protect such data against unauthorized access or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. Information is held on secure servers and is encrypted whenever this is possible. This is the same encryption used to transmit credit card details over the Internet when buying merchandise online. Our security procedures also provide that, in addition to any password, which you may require to gain access to the Service, you may have to provide proof of identification before we will release personal information to you. You are responsible for keeping your chosen password confidential and not to share your password with any third party. Multiple incorrect attempts or invalidation may result in a lockout from the information. We undergo periodic reviews of our security policies and procedures to ensure that our systems are secure and protected. You should never divulge your username and password to anyone else. You should never write your password down or store it on your computer and you should make sure you change it regularly.

 

Trip Guru does not give any representation, warranty or undertaking that the Personal Information provided to us will be secure at all times, and to the extent where Trip Guru has fulfilled its obligations, under no circumstances shall Trip Guru be responsible for any losses, damages, costs and expenses which you may suffer or incur arising from unauthorized access to, or use of, your Personal Information.

 

Usage of Information

 

Trip Guru will not sell or rent your Personal Information to third parties.

 

Trip Guru will use Personal Information and other data collected through this Website or when making purchases for the Services to create your User Account, to provide you with Services, to continually improve this Website and the Services, and to contact you in relation to any booked Services.

 

The purpose of using your Personal Information or such other data is to achieve faster purchase requests, ensure you are correctly billed, provide a better customer support, measure and track demographic details about our customers, target content on our Website to improve the matches on your interests and timely notice of new Services and special offers.

 

From time to time, we may also make use of your Personal Information to contact you for feedback on your use of this Website, to assist us in improving this Website, or to offer special savings or promotions to you, where you have indicated your consent to receiving such communications. If you would prefer not to receive notices of special savings or promotions, you may simply decline receiving them by unsubscribing from our mailing list by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in our e-mails.

 

If you connect to the Website using Social Media Platforms, we may show you reviews, photos and tours that your Social Media Platform friends have posted, shared, saved or purchased on the Website. Note that, if you have Social Media Platforms friends who are using the Website, they may also share information about you with us through the respective social media platform. If you wish to prevent that sharing, please review the different Social Media Platforms privacy settings. When accessing Social Media Platforms services through Trip Guru, you are sharing information with those sites, and the information you share is governed by their privacy policies.

 

Some of the Personal Information collected shall be shared with our Service providers, namely the tour operators, directly responsible in fulfilling the Service purchased on our Website. We shall only provide our service providers with name and basic local contact details, and if provided some further details, such as hotel name for pick-ups and drop-offs, local phone number, mobile phone number, email address, etc. We shall not provide tour operators with any other Personal Information.

 

We are hereby also entitled to share your Personal Information with third parties contracted to provide us with marketing and data reporting services who are bound to us by confidentiality obligations and with other third-party marketing partners and third-party online partners to help manage and optimize our Website and our overall business.

 

Disclosure of Information

 

We may from time to time at the entire discretion of Trip Guru, share and disclose your Personal Information and other data to third parties, some of whom may be located outside your home country. The circumstances under which such sharing and disclosure may take place shall include without limitation, the following:

 

- To successfully complete a reservations or otherwise implement our Terms of Use;

- To the relevant Operator in connection with a Service which you have made reservations for or intend to make reservations for;

- To the relevant User in connection with the Services the tour provider is offering;

- To our third party service providers (including Google Analytics) for the purposes of data analysis, marketing, market research, and to otherwise provide with customer services.

- If and to the extent required by any applicable law, order of court or requests by any governmental authority to make such disclosure.

- In case of a corporate transaction, in connection with the sale, merge, acquisition, or other corporate reorganization or restructuring of our corporation: Personal Information may be hereto disclosed, shared or transferred to the new controlling entity or its authorized third party for carrying on our business;

- To our advisors, agencies or other parties concerned in order to protect the rights and property of Trip Guru.

- In any other case, to any third parties with your prior written consent.

 

There may be links present on this Website which could result in you leaving this Websites and/or being taken to other third party websites. You should note that any Personal Information that you provide to these third party websites are not subject to this Privacy Policy, and Trip Guru is not liable for any losses, damages, costs or expenses which you may suffer or incur in connection with you providing or making available Personal Information or other data to such third party websites.

 

Data Access and Correction

 

You may access and correct your Personal Information through this Website or make your data access or correction request by sending your request by email at info@thetripguru.com. When handling a data access or correction request, we have the right to check the identity of the requester to ensure that he/she is the person entitled to make the data access or correction request. We also try to ensure that all information, which we hold for you, is accurate.  If you find any inaccuracies we will delete these or correct them promptly.  Communication with you may be impeded if the information we hold is inadequate or inaccurate.

 

Changes to our Privacy Policies

 

Trip Guru reserves the right to update, amend or modify the terms of this Privacy Policy or any part of it without prior notice, and your continued access of this Website or use of the Services signifies your acceptance of the updated, amended or modified Privacy Policy. Should the User not agree to all the terms and conditions in this Privacy Policy and/or any subsequent updates, amendments or modifications thereto, it shall be his/her responsibility to stop accessing or otherwise using this Website and acquiring Services.

 

On behalf of Trip Guru we encourage you to read this Privacy Policy, and contact us on any doubt or query you may have over this privacy policy terms, to info@thetripguru.com.

 

Accordingly, please visit this page if you wish to access and view the current version of this Privacy Policy.

 

This Privacy Policy only applies to this Website and does not apply to any websites from which you may have linked to this Website or to any website to which you may link from this Website.

 

Severance

 

If any provision of this Agreement is or becomes invalid or contravenes any applicable law, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

Governing Law

 

This Agreement is governed by and shall be construed in accordance with the laws of Hong Kong and the parties hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Hong Kong courts.