Privacy Policy

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 passport, 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 Website, or provided to us while using this Website and information about your use of the 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, Instagram, 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. We may also generate and receive (from our tour operators) multimedia contents from the tours booked through our Website.

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:

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 secured payment gateway.

You may contribute to the Website in a number of different ways, such as writing reviews, uploading photos and/or videos, filling out your public profile, and rating Services as well as other users' contributions (your "Content"). The tour operator, may generate multimedia content during your tour. If you would like to delete the multimedia content generated by our tour operators, you should request it via email to info@thetripguru.com , otherwise these contents shall be considered part of your Content. We may use your Content to display them to other users, and use them for promotional purposes. You shall note that the Personal Information included in your Content may be used and viewed by others. We, therefore, shall not be responsible for the information available 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.

Your information may come to us in a variety of different ways. You may provide information directly to us or our sales agents, travel agents, business partners, including tour operators and guides, and other third parties (including insurance and medical providers) when communicating via email, phone, letter, web chat or in person. You may also provide us with your information by filling in an online or printed form, leaving feedback, completing a survey, subscribing to a newsletter or a loyalty program.

Your information may also be provided to us by a friend/family member who is booking on your behalf.

Making an Enquiry or Booking a Trip

In order to handle your enquiry, fulfil your product or service request or manage your booking, we may share your personal information with the following:

Support Services

We share your personal information with third parties that help us operate, provide, improve, integrate, customize, support and market our products and services. This includes the following:

We seek to ensure that your information is protected at all times including that these third parties have agreed confidentiality restrictions and only use any personal information we share with them or which they collect on our behalf solely for the purpose of providing the contracted service to us.

Other sharing

We may share or transfer information in connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company. You will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on the services if a transaction takes place, as well as any choices you may have regarding your information.

We may share your information with relevant regulators, which may include privacy regulators and supervisory authorities in other jurisdictions, and with courts and law enforcement to comply with all applicable laws, regulations and rules, and requests of law enforcement (e.g. police), regulatory and other governmental agencies

We also share personal information with insurance providers and/or medical personnel, which may be for identification of fraud or error, for regulatory reporting and compliance, or if we believe the disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a threat to life, health or safety.

We may share in aggregate, statistical form, non-personal information regarding the visitors to our website, traffic patterns, and website usage with our advertisers.

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.

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.

When we transfer your information overseas, we seek to ensure appropriate privacy, confidentiality and security measures are in place, and that we comply with all applicable data protection and privacy laws.

If you have any specific questions about where or to whom your personal information will be sent, please write to info@thetripguru.com .

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.

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, timely notice of new Services and special offers, and provide you with memories of the experiences booked through our Website.

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 Services, special savings or promotions to you. By using our Website, unless you have expressly unsubscribed from our mailing list, by using our Website you 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. By uploading your Content to our Website, you expressly authorize us to make use of such Content (including but not limited to reviews, photos and videos) with promotional purposes through our Website, social platforms, or any other in our sole discretion.

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:

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.

Where possible we will comply with your request, however, there may be instances where we cannot fulfil your request, or there will be consequences if we were to fulfil your request. We will always communicate with you about any consequences before going forward, or give you written reasons for any refusal.

Under certain data protection laws you may also (subject to certain exceptions):

We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing the personal information requested to you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

We will only perform the activities outlined above to the extent that such activities will not compromise privacy, security or any other legal interests.

You may also wish to make a complaint about the way we have handled your personal information or other interference with your privacy rights.

You can exercise any of these rights at any time by contacting us at info@thetripguru.com or your relevant privacy or data protection authority.

TripGuru Data Protection Officer

TripGuru has appointed a dedicated Data Protection Officer. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, you may contact us via the dedicated section in our website.

One of our Privacy Officers will contact you within a reasonable time frame after receiving your enquiry or request to verify who you are in order to locate any accounts or bookings you may have with us or ask any follow up questions to better understand your enquiry.

We will inform you whether we will conduct an investigation and the estimated completion date for the investigation process. After we have completed our enquiries, we will contact you, usually in writing, to advise the outcome and invite a response to our conclusions about the complaint. If we receive a response from hiyou, we will assess it and advise if we have changed our view. If you are unsatisfied by our final response, you may escalate your complaint to the relevant regulatory body.

Complaint to the Data Protection Authority

If you have any concerns or complaints about how we are collecting or processing your personal information, you can complain to your local data protection authority. We would ask that you first contact us to seek to resolve the concern or complaint in the first instance.

We retain and store most information about you in computer systems and databases operated by either us or our external service providers. Some information about you may be recorded in paper files that we store securely.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. In some circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time, for instance where we are required to do so in accordance with legal, regulatory, tax or accounting requirements

In specific circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time so that we have an accurate record of your dealings with us in the event of any complaints or challenges, or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation relating to your personal information or dealings.

Links to Third Party Sites

Our website may include links to third party websites. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy policies. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Third-Party Widgets

Some of our services contain widgets and social media features, such as the Facebook "like" button. These widgets and features collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on the Services, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Widgets and social media features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Services. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

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.

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.

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.