Privacy Policy

Welcome to Rickshaw Travel’s Privacy Policy. If you love data you’re in for a treat, as we’re about to tell you all about how, why and when we collect, protect and delete the personal information we gather from you or that you share with us.

At Rickshaw we understand and respect the importance of your privacy and we are committed to safeguarding your personal information. We take this very seriously. In order to provide our service as a tour operator to you, we must collect personal information from you and your travelling parties. We will take all steps reasonably and necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Please note that like many things in life, this is a work in progress, which means we’ll be reviewing this policy page and updating it as we need to. Please feel free to check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

Rickshaw Travel Ltd is registered in England and Wales with the number 6355212. We are an ABTA-bonded and ATOL-licensed UK-based tour operator. Our address is Rickshaw Travel, Projects the Lanes, Nile Street, Brighton, BN1 1HW, United Kingdom.

We have a legal duty to protect personal information that we collect under the Data Protection Act 2018 (and any law which replaces it, including the new UK Data Protection Bill) (the “DPA”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, (“GDPR”). For the purpose of the DPA and GDPR, we (Rickshaw Travel Limited) are the “Data Controller”; in other words, the organisation that determines how your personal information is used)

As a company, we are on a journey to make travel more meaningful for everybody. Whether it’s a local guide in Cambodia or one of our Ramblers heading out on their first adventure, we aim to make everyone’s lives that little bit more meaningful. For us, meaningful travel is about preserving and supporting local communities, minimising the harmful effects of tourism both socially and environmentally, and ensuring that our trips are responsible, authentic – and of course fun!

Our Privacy Policy covers the following:

1. Consent
2. Types of information we collect
3. How we collect your personal information
4. Why we collect your data and how we use it
5. How we handle your information
6. How we protect your data
7. What choices you have
8. Updates or changes to this Privacy Policy

We will only use and retain your personal data with your consent or other lawful basis and we will never sell it for marketing purposes. We ask for your consent on those occasions and in those places where we specify what we will use your personal data for.
By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

By providing other people’s personal data, you must be sure that they have explicitly given consent for you to provide this to us on their behalf. You should also ensure that, where appropriate, they understand how their personal data may be used by us.

We may collect all or some of the following information relating to you or other members of your party:

• First name, surname and contact details including telephone number and email address; postal address, date of birth, gender, best time to call you, number and ages of travellers in your party, departure/return dates, preferred airports, passport details
• Card and other payment details, and financial information
• Sensitive information such as health, medical, dietary, mobility, disability, criminal convictions when travelling through countries where this is relevant or other requirements relevant to the service you are enquiring about or your contract with us
• Information collected or generated out of any surveys we conduct
• Information collected or generated out of any competitions or promotions we run
• Correspondence, communications and messages, including between you and us, and between us and third parties, including relating to any booking or booking enquiry, or performance of any contract
• Information generated concerning the performance of any booking or other contract made with or through us, including information relating to anything arising during any holiday or other travel services, and information relating to payments to be made
• We may collect information about your visits to, browsing of, and use of our website, unless your web browser blocks this. The range of data we collect will depend on how you interact with our website.

This information may include:

• Your IP address (a unique identifier allocated to your computer for your connection to the internet)
• Your computer device details (PC, tablet, smartphone, watch etc.)
• The web browser you used (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome)
• Your operating system (e.g. Windows, Windows Phone, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux etc)
• Your time-zone
• Your browser plug-ins
• Any web-page you came from, identified as the referrer web page address by your web browser
• Cookies (not the chocolate chip ones, sorry!)
• Page response times
• Download error
• Pages and parts of pages you visit
• Usage you make of our website, including enquiries and searches undertaken
• Products you viewed
• Products you requested through the website
• Length of visit to website and pages
• Page interaction information (such as scrolling, keys pressed, mouse clicks, touches, and mouse-overs)
• Holiday photos and videos that you take and share with us during or after your trip
• Blog/diary entries you send us during or after your trip
• API (advanced passenger information)

When you visit our website

• When you use our web contact forms to ask a question or submit an enquiry, we will collect personal information from you. This includes your name and contact information, details about the destinations and countries that you are most interested in, and any additional details of your travel plans which you voluntarily give to us.

• The domain and IP (Internet Protocol) address that your computer uses to connect to the internet; your computer, browser, operating system, internet connection, referral information, search terms and other standard information collected by default by tools such as Google Analytics. We can collect information via your IP address to analyse how visitors use our website. Your IP address identifies the computer or service provider that you use to access our website, or information about your browser type, authentication identifiers, and other software and hardware information. If you access our website through a mobile or other device we may collect your mobile device identifier, geolocation data (including your precise location), or other transactional information for that device. We may combine this information with other information that we have collected to make our website and our communications to you more targeted to your interests.

• We may also use cookies (not the edible ones), which are small pieces of information that a website can store in a designated file on your computer. Cookies allow a web application to respond to you as an individual. The basic user information collected is used to help us analyse web traffic and to improve the content of our website. Cookies may be used to simplify your interaction with us. Visit our Cookie Policy for more information on this.

• We may use Google Analytics to understand how web visitors interact with our website, what pages they visit, how long they stay browsing our site and whether they complete any actions (requesting a holiday, signing up for our newsletter, entered a competition, clicking on a specific call to action). You can view Google’s privacy policy here.

• We may from time to time disclose impersonal information to relevant third parties on our website’s traffic profile. For example, internet advertising companies, Google and Facebook may require this data to help us better target advertisements on our website and/or other websites. You can view more information on cookies, a list of cookies that are used on this website, and how to remove them by visiting our cookie page.

• When you upload an image to our customer photo gallery we may collect your name, email address and the images/video content that you agree for us to use.

 

When you sign up to our email newsletter
When you sign up to our email newsletter on our website or through our Facebook page:

• We ask you to share with us your first name, surname and email address. We use this information to be able to send you the email newsletters you have signed up for. This information is kept indefinitely but you may opt out at any time.
• We may collect your date of birth, booking history (if you’re an existing customer), enquiry history (if you have ever enquired about any of our holidays) and personal interests. We do this so we can communicate with you as you requested and tailor our communications to you.
• We may also collect details of your email activity, including any links in them that you click on and any web browsing activity. We do this so we can send you more relevant communications.
• We may use the information collected to personalise and target our advertising online or via social media.

You can unsubscribe from our newsletters at any time, by emailing hello@rickshawtravel.co.uk.

 

When you request a holiday travel plan from us
• If you request a quote for a holiday, you will have to share your name, phone number, email address, postal address and details of any group members travelling with you (which you agree that you have received explicit consent to share with us). This information is kept indefinitely. The basis of consent for this is legitimate interests.

• We also collect information regarding your travel arrangements, which can include passport and flight details

• We may collect any communications with you concerning any enquiries. This is done on the basis of our legitimate interests in ensuring our business is run efficiently.

• When you request a Travel Plan from us you will have a choice to subscribe to our newsletters. You can subscribe and unsubscribe at any time. Please note that if you unsubscribe to our promotional newsletters you may still receive service-related communications from us. For example, confirming bookings you make with us and providing important information about your Travel Plan.

 

When you make a booking with Rickshaw Travel
When you make a booking with us we may collect:

• Any communications with you concerning any enquiries. This is done based on our legitimate interests in ensuring our business is run efficiently.

• Information relating to quoting and booking a travel service, including information regarding family and travel companion(s) such as names, emergency contacts and special service needs, such as any disability or medical or dietary restrictions (which may disclose your religious beliefs), passport information, dates of birth, insurance information, criminal convictions when travelling through countries where this is relevant, visa information, nationality and country of residence.

• Information about your purchases, including what you bought and when you bought it, how you paid for it and other payment information (albeit that we never store these details).

• Social preferences, interests and activities.

• Advance Passenger Information (API) in Travelport (Galileo)
Under UK law (The Immigration Act 1971, the Immigration and Police (Passenger, Crew and Service Information) Order 2008 and the Security and Travel Bans Authority to Carry Scheme 2012), Rickshaw Travel Ltd are legally required to collect Advance Passenger Information (API) for passengers prior to travel for many destinations and share that information with carriers/airlines that are supporting our customers’ journeys. This information is required to aid aviation safety and security.

Rickshaw Travel’s legal basis for processing this data is to support our legal obligations under UK law.

Advance Passenger Information is no different in content from data collected for travel services above, so by default it would be retained indefinitely. The carrier’s duty to share this information will be in accordance with local legislation, e.g. in the UK, carriers are required to share Advanced Passenger Information with the UK government border systems programme.

• When you book a holiday with us, you will have a choice to subscribe to our newsletters. You can subscribe and unsubscribe at any time. Please note that if you unsubscribe to our promotional newsletters you may still receive service-related communications from us. For example, confirming bookings you make with us and providing important information about the use of your enquiry.

Important note regarding the personal data you provide about other individuals:

We will use personal data about other individuals provided by you, such as those people on your booking, including minors, according to the terms set out in this policy.

When providing the personal data of other travellers or guests on your trip, we ask that you have explicitly confirmed with them that they consent to you providing us with their personal details on their behalf. You should also ensure that, where appropriate, that they understand how their personal data may be used by us.

Please also tell them about this privacy policy and give them our contact details if they have any queries. Please make sure you let us know if any of these third parties would like to speak to us directly, either about the trip or about our use of their data.

 

When you call us, we may collect:
• Telephone information including phone numbers, call duration and call recordings that we use for training and quality control.

• No card details are recorded during call recording.

When you use our online web chat
• When you use our online web chat feature on our website, Olark is the data processor of your personal information collected on our behalf. The data they collect is kept for indefinitely as governed by their Terms of Service and is only shared with us so you can be sure it is kept safe.

When you come back from a Rickshaw holiday

• Feedback and information relevant to customer surveys, competitions, feedback and market research.

• Blog content from your travels that you send us and you give us consent to use in our website or for marketing purposes.

• Photos or videos that you’ve taken in any Rickshaw holiday that you send over or upload to our customer gallery.

We collect your personal data:

To communicate with you about your holiday

We may use your email address or telephone number (or both) to communicate with you about your holiday. This is so we can send you information and updates pertaining to your enquiry or booking. It may also be used to respond to your inquiries, questions, and/or other requests.

We have a legitimate interest to use your information in this way to make sure that we are able to help you find the right destination and start to plan the best holiday for you. Where we rely on our legitimate interests, we’ll always ensure that your rights are protected.

 

To provide you with the holiday you’ve booked with us

If you book trips with us, we will ask you to provide certain details about your travel arrangements. This is likely to include details of your passports, emergency contacts, travel insurance arrangements, preferences and special requirements, frequent flyer club membership, visa requirements, flights (if you arrange your own flights). This will also include details of any other friends or family who are accompanying you as part of your booking.

We will use this information to help us organise your trip, make bookings on your behalf and ensure that you (and any other friends or family accompanying you) receive the products and services set out in your itinerary.

We collect this information so we can fulfil our contract with you and provide you with the quality of service we strive to provide.

When you are a regular Rickshaw customer, we may retain some of this personal information so that we can use it when you next book with us as we have a legitimate interest to improve our customer journey and ensure we look after our regular customers.

To improve customer service

The personal information that you provide helps us respond to your customer service requests and support your needs more efficiently. We want to make sure that you get the best out of us as a customer, so if you contact us, for example by email and phone or via social media, we may use your personal data to provide clarification or assistance to you. We may also record both in-bound and out-bound telephone calls or collect information when you use our Live Chat feature on our website to speak with our Specialists to ensure quality of service and for training purposes.

We collect this information so we can fulfil our legitimate interests as a business to ensure that our Specialists are trained to the highest level so that our customers receive the very best travel advice.

We may also collect and use certain particularly sensitive personal information about you, namely specific details of any relevant health conditions, disabilities, access requirements and special dietary requirements that you may have or criminal convictions when travelling through countries where this is relevant. We collect this information directly from you to try to ensure that your trip is appropriate for your needs and to try and keep you safe during any trip that you plan through us. We may need to ask for your explicit consent in order to process this information.

To improve our product and day-to-day operations

We monitor how our services are used to help protect your personal data, detect and prevent fraud and ensure health and safety. This helps us to make sure that you can safely use our services. We may use personal data to respond to and to manage security operations, accidents or other similar incidents, including medical and insurance purposes.

To personalise user experience

We also may use personal data to carry out market research and internal research and development, and to develop and improve our product range, services, IT systems, security, know-how and the way we communicate with you.

We want to ensure that marketing communications relating to our products and services, and those of our suppliers, retail partners including online advertising, are relevant to your interests.

To do this, we may use your personal data to better understand your interests so that we can try to predict what other products, services and information you might be most interested in. This enables us to tailor our communications to make them more relevant and interesting for you.

Looking at your browsing behaviour and purchases helps us to better understand you as a customer and it allows us to provide you with personalised offers and services.

We may also measure your responses to marketing communications relating to products and services we offer, which enables us to offer you products and services that better meet your needs as a customer.

To improve our website

We may use any feedback you provide to improve our products and services. We may monitor and record user website interactions to understand consumer behaviour and make improvements to better our user experience. This means we may collect certain technical information about you when you visit our website. This is likely to include: the internet domain you use, your IP address or other device identifier, your browser type and version (e.g. Chrome or Internet Explorer), the operating system and platform that you are using (e.g. Windows or Mac), the screen resolution of your device, the dates and times when you access our website, the full URLs of the pages you visit and the websites or links that you use to access our website, details of products or services that are viewed and the length of visits to certain pages of the website.

We use cookies to collect this information; for more information about what cookies are and how we use them, please refer to our cookie policy.

We use this information for website management and security purposes (such as troubleshooting and testing) as well as to help us improve our overall website experience. We do not try to identify individual users or their usage habits from this data.

We collect this information, so we can fulfil our legitimate interests as a business to ensure that our website is fit for purpose and promotes our services appropriately for our customers, including by displaying information that our customers are interested in. We also rely on our legitimate interest in measuring customer satisfaction and troubleshooting any website issues. Where required by law, we may also seek and rely on your consent.

To process payments
We may use the information that users provide about themselves when placing an order only to provide service to that order. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to provide the service.

To run a promotion, competition, survey or other website feature
We will rely on your consent or on our legitimate interests (depending on whether we are marketing or carrying out market research), whilst always ensuring that your rights are protected.

Promotions and competitions
We need to process your personal data so that we can manage any promotions and competitions you choose to enter, including those we run with our suppliers and partners. For example, we wouldn’t be able to notify you if you win a prize unless we have your contact details.

Customer research
To help us to better understand you as a customer, and to be able to provide you with services and marketing communications (including online advertising relevant to your interests), we may combine the personal data we collect when you make a booking with personal data collected from our website and other sources.

Customer surveys
We may invite you to take part in customer surveys, questionnaires and other market research activities to understand your needs and provide you with a more personalised experience.

Social Media
We may collect details about you, such as your user name, when you engage with us on social media (by mentioning or tagging us in a post or contacting us directly); this is so that we can respond to any comments and queries you have. We rely on our legitimate interests to do this as we want to ensure our customers have the best possible experience, whilst always ensuring your rights are protected.

Customer photo gallery
We may collect your name, email address and images/video content when you choose to upload one of your holiday images/video to the customer gallery on our website. When you upload images/video to our customer gallery you irrevocably grant permission for your social media, images and/or video content produced to be used by Rickshaw Travel, for commercial use in promotional material, in perpetuity and worldwide, in any and all media, including but not exclusive of; print and digital brochures, retail store graphics, press articles, offline and online advertising, paid media, social media, print media, emails, websites, digital screens, internal and external events, film, video, cable and broadcast television and the Internet. You also agree that Rickshaw Travel do not have to credit your images and/or video content to yourself, unless otherwise agreed in writing outside of this document. As part of this process, and when you choose to upload an image or video to our customer gallery we may also collect your name and email address. This is so we can associate the uploaded content item(s) to its original owner, and attribute the rights to that content should anyone ever need to contest them / have content removed etc. If we didn’t store this information, we wouldn’t be able to locate the respective content again. This data is stored in a secure database on our servers, and we take no further action with it. We merely keep hold of it in order to be able to substantiate, and action, any claims/ removal requests for the associated content as outlined above.

To send promotional marketing emails
If you have consented to receiving our newsletters, we may use your email address to send you newsletters with inspiration and holiday ideas. We may also use data we collect from you (either directly or via our website or advertising) to help us to measure the effectiveness of our marketing communications and to establish your interests.

We rely on your consent to contact you directly about our offering. In other scenarios in carrying out efficient and appropriate marketing and advertising for our services, we will rely on our legitimate interests, whilst always ensuring that your rights are protected. You can withdraw your consent or opt out of our newsletters at any time emailing hello@rickshawtravel.co.uk or through the ‘unsubscribe’ option in any promotional email.

To arrange your Honeymoon Gift Service
We may collect information if you register to use our Honeymoon Gift Service. Guests can make a general contribution towards your itinerary. We use this information to administer our Honeymoon Gift Service. We rely on our legitimate interests to provide you with added value service whilst celebrating your big day and we will also process this information in order that we can fulfil our contract with you.

If you contact us in order to make a contribution to the honeymoon of friends or family members through our Honeymoon Gift Service, we will collect and use your payment information (including credit or debit card details) in order to process the payment. We collect this information so we can fulfil our contract with you and process the payment. Please note, we never retain copies of payment details.

Financial Protection
In the event of our insolvency we, or any appointed insolvency practitioner, may disclose your personal information to the CAA, and/or ABTA so that they can assess the status of your booking and advise you on the appropriate course of action under any scheme of financial protection. The CAA’s General Privacy Notice is at https://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/About-us/General-privacy-notice/ ABTA’s Privacy Notice is at https://www.abta.com/privacy-notice.

Your personal data and that of your party is important to us. We do not sell, distribute, rent or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. This means we will never share, rent or trade your personal information to any third parties for marketing purposes. We will always treat it with the respect it deserves and will never pass it to any third parties, except those that need this information in the course of providing the holiday services that you have booked.

Who we share your data with

• Selected trusted third party business partners (such as the local businesses we partner with in the destinations that our customers travel to) and service providers (such as Travelport, hotels, guides, drivers) to perform services related to the contracts we enter into with you. However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we make every effort to ensure that your information is kept secure and not used for their own direct marketing purposes.

• Our holding company, Riksja Travel and their subsidiaries, Erlebe Fernreisen.

• Any other third parties if necessary to comply with legal obligations or enforce agreements. For example, we are required to provide airlines with a passenger mobile phone number and email contact details under IATA Resolution 830d for the airline to inform the passenger of any operational difficulties.

• Any other third parties if this is necessary to protect our or your rights, property, or safety and/or those of others.

• Third party websites. You may find that we integrate some third-party web applications to enhance our customer experience, for example Trustpilot. We may share your first name and email with them so they can send you an invitation to review your holiday. This is part of our post-holiday process to understand how you would rate our services. This helps us understand how well we did and how we can make things better in the future.

It is worth noting that some of these providers will be based in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) which may not have such strong data protection legislation as the UK. With any of our overseas partners, we have taken steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this privacy notice. For example, we make sure that they have entered into a formal agreement with us and that they meet our standards for data security, i.e. they will not use your data for anything other than the clearly defined purpose relating to the service that they are providing. We disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service.
Rickshaw Travel’s basis for processing this data is to support our legal obligations under UK law and to deliver the contract you have entered into. If we cannot pass this information to the relevant suppliers, whether in the EEA or not, we cannot continue to process your booking. In making a booking with us, you consent to this information being passed on to the relevant parties as outlined in this Privacy Policy).

We take website security very seriously and we are committed to safeguarding your personal information. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect both online and offline.

Our website, www.rickshawtravel.co.uk, is protected by the utmost level of online security. All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers and safeguarded by the best firewalls available. Payments are processed through Bacs (bank to bank payments); we never keep any payment details on record. Any payment transactions are secured by SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption which requires a secure, data encrypted password and the system is constantly monitored to validate data and user authorisation.

We take full responsibility for ensuring that proper security measures are in place to protect your information. We must pass the information on to the relevant suppliers of your travel arrangements such as airlines, local partners, hotels, tour guides, transport companies etc. The information may also be provided to security or credit checking companies, public authorities such as customs/immigration if required by them or by law.

Additionally, where your holiday is outside the European Economic Area (EEA), controls on data protection in your destination may not be as strong as the legal requirements in this country. We will not however, pass any information on to any person not responsible for part of your travel arrangements. This applies to any sensitive information that you give to us such as details of any disabilities, or dietary/religious requirements, criminal convictions when travelling through countries where this is relevant. If we cannot pass this information to the relevant suppliers, whether in the EEA or not, we cannot provide your booking. In making this booking, you consent to this information being passed on to the relevant persons.

The personal data that we collect from you will also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. This includes staff involved in, among other things, providing support services.

If you ask us to stop sending direct marketing communications to you, we will keep the minimum amount of information (e.g. name, address or email address) to ensure we adhere with such requests.

Retention of Personal Data

We will keep your information indefinitely for the purposes set out in this privacy notice. We will not keep more information than we need. If you need more information on this, please contact: hello@rickshawtravel.co.uk

• You can unsubscribe from email communications

We hope that you enjoy our promotional ramblings. However, every marketing email that we send to you will include details on how to unsubscribe from future communications. You can unsubscribe to these at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails or by emailing us at hello@rickshawtravel.co.uk

• You can amend or ask us to stop contacting you

At any time, you have the right to ask Rickshaw Travel to amend or stop how it uses your personal information including for marketing purposes. You can contact us by phoning, emailing or writing using our contact details below.

If you have booked a trip with us, however, we will need to gather, distribute and retain your personal details according to the terms set out in this privacy policy otherwise we would be unable continue to process your booking and fulfil your contract.

You can ask us to remove your personal information

If you would like us to remove the personal information we hold about you, please contact us using the below contact details.

You can request what data we hold about you

You have the right to check that your personal data is being processed lawfully and to see what personal data we hold about you by means of something called a “subject access data request”. This may be subject to an administration fee to meet our costs in providing you with details of any personal data we hold about you. For more details on how to do this, please contact us using the below contact details:

By post: Rickshaw Travel, Projects the Lanes, Nile Street, Brighton, BN1 1HW

By email: hello@rickshawtravel.co.uk

By phone: +44 (0) 1273 322399

 

You can make an official complaint

Hopefully, you won’t ever have to, but just so that you know, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority, The Information Commissioner’s Office – www.ico.org.uk

To make sure we’re always at the top of our game and fully compliant with the law, we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time and without notice, so make sure you check back occasionally. If we change our Privacy Policy, we will publish those changes on this page.

We’ve tried to make this privacy policy as clear and easy to read as possible, but if you have any suggestions as to how we can make this better, or if you have any data-related questions about our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information, please drop us a line at hello@rickshawtravel.co.uk.

So that’s pretty much ‘it’ folks – Thanks for reading all the way to the end – you’ve definitely earned some brownie points… or err… simply some brownies!

Privacy policy updated on 2nd May 2023