Culture Holidays takes its data protection and privacy responsibilities seriously.
Please read the following privacy policy (Privacy Policy) to understand how we use and protect the personal information you provide to us, or we receive and collect when you use our services, including how we collect it, and what we do with it, as well as some of the steps we take to safeguard your personal information. We hope that this will help you make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us.
This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time to keep it up to date with legal requirements and the way we operate our business. You are responsible for reviewing this Privacy Policy periodically and informing yourself of any changes to this Privacy Policy. We suggest that you check back regularly to review any changes. If we make significant changes to this Privacy Policy, we will seek to inform you by notice on our website or email.
The way we use information
we use the information you provide about yourself when placing an order only to complete that order. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that order. We will use this information to occasionally inform you of promotions being run on the website. Within each email, you will be provided with an option to opt out from receiving such emails in the future. We use return email addresses to answer the email we receive. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties. We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design our website and to share with advertisers. For example, we may tell an advertiser that x number of individuals visited a certain area on our website, but we would not disclose anything that could be used to identify those individuals. Finally, we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing you with an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.
About us
Culture Holidays is best known for offering incomparable and exquisite travel experiences since 2000. We specialize in arranging travel experiences in destinations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
We are a member of IATO and approved by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.
Type of information collected
The type of information we collect about you depends on the nature of your interaction with us. Depending on the circumstances, we collect any of the following:
Visit our website: We may collect certain non-personally identifiable Information when you visit our website. Examples of this include IP address, device type, pages viewed, date of visit, and. Collecting this information enables us to improve the quality, services and relevance of our website for our visitors, diagnose any problems with our server and administer the operation of our website.
Booking a Reservation: When booking any travel or tour package with us, we will ask for your name, home & billing address, telephone number, email address, payment details, birth date, and passport information. We will need to collect this information in order to arrange the travel and other services you are requesting.
Create an account: Registration information when you create an account with us.
Contact by phone: If you call us by telephone, we may monitor and/or record the phone conversation for training purposes and customer service reasons.
Photo and Video: When you are traveling with us on a tour or branded trip, as part of your experience a photo or video may be taken either by the Culture Holidays leader, an employee of Culture Holidays, or one of our partners or another passenger. We care about your privacy so if you do not wish for your photograph to be taken at any time, or to be included in any video, please let your tour group leader or the photographer know. Any photos taken by Culture Holidays Group staff (including employees and group leaders) will not be used for marketing purposes without your prior knowledge. Whilst we take every precaution to protect your privacy, we are not responsible for passengers who may take your photograph or video you without our knowledge.
Your interaction with us: If you participate in a survey, subscribe to our newsletter or marketing communications, interact with us via social media or attend an event we may host, we will collect your name, relevant contact information, and any other personal information you choose to give us.
How we use your information
We may use the information that you have provided to us to:
- fulfill our obligations in relation to your reservation;
- send you communications about your reservation, including changes to our services and important travel updates;
- provide you with the travel information you have requested;
- verify your identity for fraud prevention purposes;
- create or register an account with us;
- seek your views or comments about your reservation, including customer surveys;
- send you marketing communications to which you have subscribed;
- enable us to interact with you on social media platforms, such as publish your reviews, forum posts and other content on our website;
- optimize or improve our products, services and website;
- resolve any disputes or troubleshoot problems;
- comply with any legal obligations;
- prevent illegal or unlawful activities;
- protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our employees, our guest or others; and
- as otherwise described to you at the point of collection.
How long we keep your information
We will keep your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to enable us to provide the relevant services you have requested from us, to resolve any disputes, to comply with any legal obligations, or for as long as your account is active.
Your Information Rights
You can access or update your account information by logging into the My Account page. If you would like to deactivate your account, please contact us at the address listed below. After your account is deactivated, you will not be able to sign in or have access to your account or any personal information provided.
WITH WHOM YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Your information shall be shared with the end service providers like airlines, hotels, bus service providers, cab rentals, railways, or any other suppliers who are responsible for fulfilling your booking. You may note that while making a booking with Culture Holidays you authorize us to share your information with the said service providers and suppliers. It is pertinent to note that Culture Holidays does not authorize the end service provider to use your information for any other purpose(s) except as may be for fulfilling their part of the service. However, how the said service providers/suppliers use the information shared with them is beyond the purview and control of Culture Holidays as they process Personal Information as independent data controllers, and hence we cannot be made accountable for the same. You are therefore advised to review the privacy policies of the respective service provider or supplier whose services you choose to avail.
Culture Holidays does not sell or rent individual customer names or other Personal Information of Users to third parties except for sharing of such information with our business/alliance partners or vendors who are engaged by us for providing various services and for sharing promotional and other benefits to our customers from time to time basis their booking history with us.
Selling data
We do not and will not sell your personal information under any circumstances.
Social Media
When you engage with us on social media platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) your interactions with us are governed by this Privacy Policy as well as the Privacy Policy of the social media platform you use.
Marketing Emails
Where you choose to receive marketing information, we will let you know about any special offers or promotions that may be of interest to you, including our newsletter. Recipients can opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link on the bottom of the marketing email.
What are your rights?
We want you to feel reassured that you have control of the information you provide to us. Subject to certain exemptions, and depending on relevant data protection laws, including in some cases upon our legal basis for processing your information there are certain rights you have over your personal information. These include:
- You can ask us to update any inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date information we hold about you
- You can ask us to provide you with a copy of the information we hold on you, or that we transfer that information to another service provider
- You may request that we stop processing or using your information
- You may request that we delete any / all information we hold about you
- You may withdraw the consent that you have provided to us
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.
Security
While no online services can guarantee absolute security, we are committed to taking appropriate steps designed to protect the information that we collect. We employ reasonable and appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against loss, misuse, or alteration. Access to private and confidential data is granted to only those of our people that need to use it and they may only do so for permitted business functions. We use SSL encryption to protect your sensitive information online and we employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized person from gaining access to your information.
