Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement applies to you if you

• are one of our customers or are in a contractual relationship with us;
• are a fellow traveller with one of our customers;
• are interested in our products or services and therefore provide us with your personal data (e.g. in an agency, on our websites and apps, or at events) so that we can contact you.

If you provide us with the personal data of other people, please ensure that you inform them that you are passing on their personal data and request that they read this Privacy Statement. We will ensure that we also do this whenever possible (e.g. if the contact details of the person in question are at hand).

If you wish to exercise the rights set out below, please apply by e-mail to datenschutz@globetrotter.ch or by post to the following address: Globetrotter Travel Service AG, Datenschutz, Neuengasse 30, 3001 Bern.

If you have questions about the use of your personal data within the scope of this Privacy Statement, please direct these to the following address: datenschutz@globetrotter.ch

2.1. You can request information about your personal data

2.2. You can apply for rectification of your personal data

2.3. You can apply for erasure of your personal data

2.4. You can object to processing of your personal data on the basis of legitimate interests

2.5. You can object to processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes

2.6. You can demand restriction of processing of your personal data

2.7. You have rights against automated individual decision-making

2.8. You can revoke your consent

2.9. You can demand portability of part of your personal data

2.10. Complaint to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner 

3.1. Contract processing and legitimate interest

In this section we explain the purpose for which we process your personal data and the legal basis on which this happens. We primarily use your personal data to process a contract to which you are a party or to implement pre-contractual measures at your request. We can also process your personal data, however, in order to fulfil our legitimate interest or that of third parties.

Your personal data is processed specifically if this is necessary for conclusion or performance of a contract in regard to the following:

• To conclude a (travel) contract with you. We can process personal data to register you as a new customer, to conclude a contract and to fulfil this with you.
• To provide you with products and services that you have acquired within the scope of the respective contract.
• To execute the account, invoicing and collection.
• To render services to you in connection with preparation and implementation of a journey.
• For insurance purposes.
• To offer consultancy services.
• To provide assistance during the trip in the event of difficulties, if necessary.
• To allow you access to our digital platforms. We can process personal data if you use our digital platforms for various purposes (e.g. to manage your personal information or to gain access to travel information).
• To grant you access to our premises and sites. We can process personal data if you visit us at our premises to carry out an appropriate access and security inspection.
• To communicate with you. We can process personal data if you want to contact us, if you ask us for information about our business or services, or if the contract has to be updated.
• To answer your enquiries and to assist you.
• To manage termination of the contract.

If our processing is based on a legitimate interest, we weigh this interest against your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms to ensure that they are proportionate. As part of our business as a travel provider, we also use your personal data to

• further develop our products and services;
• improve cybersecurity, manage our platforms and websites, and ensure business continuity;
• implement introduction of IT systems;
• carry out maintenance of IT systems in continuous operation;
• improve automation and the efficiency of our operational processes and customer services (e.g. automatic filling out of complaints, following up your enquiries and improvement of your satisfaction on the basis of personal data collected during our interaction with you, e.g. telephone recordings, e-mails or chats);
• facilitate assertion of legal claims and defence in connection with legal disputes and official procedures;
• organise competitions and advertising campaigns, and perform the opinion polls and customer satisfaction surveys.

3.2. Advertising and marketing

If you are a customer and provided you do not object, we can send you offers for our products and services. We ensure that these relate to commercial offers on products or services that are relevant to your needs and which complement services of which you have already availed yourself. You can object to this at any time.

3.3. Consent

We will specifically inform you and ask for your consent to certain processing of personal data. Of course, you can withdraw your consent at any time.

In particular, we ask for your consent for

• transmission to third parties of particularly sensitive personal data;
• customised adaptation of our offers and products or services on the basis of a complex profile in order to predict your needs and response;
• any electronic offers of products and services that are not similar to those that you have acquired, or for products and services from our trusted partners.

If necessary, we can ask you for further consent to processing of your personal data; however, this does not affect data processing that has already taken place.

We collect and use your personal data, i.e. any information that identifies you or makes it possible to identify you.

We collect various types of personal data about you depending on the type of product or service we offer you and the interactions that we have with you:

• Contact information: (personal or professional) postal address, e-mail address, telephone number.
• Personal data: e.g. gender, date of birth and age, family status, nationality, passport details.
• Lifestyle: e.g. hobbies and interests, travel.
• Travel information: such as dates of travel, travel route/destination, airline, hotel, price, customer wishes, information about your fellow travellers, frequent flyer scheme.
• Health data: e.g. details of special needs dictated by health or illnesses and accidents during a trip.
• Financial information: e.g. payment information, credit card number, account details.
• Data about your habits and preferences: relating to use of our products and services (e.g. meal preferences).
• Details of our interactions with you: e.g. your comments, suggestions and needs that have been collected during our exchanges with you in person at our sites and during telephone communication (conversation notes or recordings), communication by e-mail, chat, chatbot, exchanges on our social media, and your complaints, if any. Your connection and tracking data (e.g. collected using cookies for non-advertising or analytical purposes on our websites), online services, other applications.
• Data about your devices: (mobile telephone, computer, tablet, etc.), such as IP address, technical data and clear identification data.
• Personalised registration data or security features used to connect you with our website and apps.

We generally collect personal data directly from you. We can also collect it from other sources, however.

We sometimes collect data from public sources:

• publications/databases supplied by official authorities or third parties (e.g. the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce or the Commercial Register);
• websites/presence on social media of legal entities or corporate clients that contain information that you have disclosed (e.g. your own website or your social media presence);
• public information, e.g. information in the media.

We also collect personal data from third parties:

• from our customers (e.g. as fellow travellers);
• from our business partners (e.g. as tour operators, service providers abroad);
• from third parties such as credit information and anti-fraud agencies;
• from address researchers who are themselves responsible for legally collecting relevant information.

As the occasion arises, we can forward your personal data to others in order to fulfil some of the purposes described in this Privacy Statement, especially the execution of a journey. These may be the following:

• our agents in the destination country (e.g. agencies, tour guide, hotel reservation, transfer and excursion services), transport service providers (airline, railway, car hire, etc.) and accommodation operators (hotel, hostels, etc.);
• processors who render services on our behalf (e.g. IT services, logistics, printing services, telecommunications, collection, consultancy and sales, as well as marketing);
• specific regulation professional groups, such as lawyers, notaries or auditors, if this is necessary under certain circumstances (legal disputes, accounts audit, etc.), and our insurers;
• partners – in order to carry out advertising, market research and opinion polls;
• partners – in order to assist with investigating crimes (e.g. fraud), assertion, exercise or defence of legal claims;
• authorities and official departments (e.g. tax authorities, destination country embassies) if there is a statutory or official obligation (e.g. duty of retention, obtaining a visa, obtaining conditions for immigration).

In the case of international transfers from Switzerland and the European Economic Area (EEA) to a non-EEA country (third country), these may constitute cross-border transfer of your personal data. You must in particular expect your data to be transferred to your destination countries, as well as to European countries, the USA and worldwide, i.e. wherever the service providers and agents we use are located. If the FDPIC or the European Commission has acknowledged that a third country offers an adequate level of data protection, your personal data can be transferred on this basis.

In the case of transfers to a third country whose level of protection has not been acknowledged as adequate by the FDPIC and European Commission, we either rely on an exception that applies to the situation (e.g. if transfer is necessary to fulfil our contract with you) or apply one of the following guarantees to ensure protection of your personal data:

• standard contractual clauses approved by the FDPIC and the European Commission;
• binding, Swiss data protection provisions.

You can apply in writing according to clause 2 in order to obtain a copy of these guarantees or information about from where these can be obtained.

We will retain your personal data for as long as is necessary for fulfilment of our contractual obligations and to comply with the applicable laws and regulations, or for another period with regard to our legitimate business interests, such as due and proper accounting and response to legal claims or official enquiries.

We use suitable technical and organisational security measures to protect your personal data stored with us against manipulation, partial or complete loss and against unauthorised access by third parties (e.g. transmission encryption, access controls). Our security measures are continuously improved in line with technological developments.

On our websites and apps we typically set cookies and use comparable techniques to identify your browser or your device. A cookie is a small file that is sent to your computer or automatically stored on your computer or mobile device by the Internet browser you use if you visit our website or install our app. When you access this website again or use our app, in this way we can identify you again, even if we don't know who you are. In addition to cookies that are only used during a session and are erased after your website visit (session cookies), cookies can also be used to store user settings and other information (permanent cookies) for a specific time (e.g. two years). You can set your browser, however, so that it rejects cookies, stores them just for a session or otherwise deletes them prematurely. Most browsers are pre-set so that they (i.e. you) accept cookies. We use permanent cookies so that you store user settings (e.g. language, auto login) so that we better understand how you use our offers and content and so that we can display offers and advertising tailored to you (which can also happen on other companies' websites; however, these do not learn from us who you are, if we even know that ourselves, as they only see that the same user that was on a specific page of ours is on their website too). Some cookies are placed by use, and some also by contractual partners with whom we work. If you block cookies, some functionalities (such as language choice or booking processes) may not work any more.

List of cookies used

List of third-party providers on this website

We use what are known as "plug-ins" from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram on our website. In each case you can see this (because of the corresponding logos). We have configured these features such that they are deactivated as standard. If you activate them (by clicking on them), the respective social networks' operators can register that you are on our website, and where, and can use this information for their purposes. This operator is then responsible for processing your personal data according to its data protection provisions. We do not obtain any information about you from them.

In a world in which technologies are constantly developing, we regularly review this Privacy Statement and update it as necessary.

The respective version currently published on our website applies. We recommend you inspect the latest version of this document online. We will inform you of changes via our website or via our usual communications channels.