What The Californian Consumer Privacy Act And The Gdpr Mean For Consumers And Tour Businesses

Regarded as one of the most sweeping data-privacy laws in the US to strengthen consumer security, the California Consumer Privacy Act entered into force in January 2020. In simple terms, this law aims to empower consumers to access, alter or remove their personal data that is held by certain businesses. For companies, it promotes transparency of the use of personal data and its trade between organisations. Californian businesses need to meet one of three thresholds for this law to impact them:

• deriving 50% revenue from selling consumers’ personal data;
• having an annual gross revenue of over $25 million; or,
• those companies that buy, sell or receive the personal information of at least 50,000 individuals, households or devices.

However, this law will likely impact all types of businesses extensively, including in the travel industry. Here, we will explain what consumer privacy laws are and how they will impact tour operators.

Personal data and why it needs protecting

According to this new legislation, personal data can include financial information, health data, geolocation, family information and household purchasing data, just to name a few. Put simply, personal data means any stored identifying information such as names, addresses, credit card information, age, email addresses and phone numbers. Data processing firms buy, sell and trade this information in order to target advertisements, identify markets, prevent fraud or report on consumer activity, among other reasons. This is often done without the consumer’s knowledge (unless you are one of the 3-8% of people who read the terms and conditions).

California Consumer Privacy Act

This new law will require consumers to opt-in to having their data stored and shared, rather than having to opt-out. It also requires companies to explain in simple, concise terms the reasons for the data collection and, if this changes, request a reiteration of the consumer’s consent. What’s more, consumers will now be able to request access to the information that is stored by the company without reasonable delay while also offering them the power to request that the data is erased or transferred elsewhere.

California being the state to implement such a law is no coincidence, considering it hosts the highest concentration of technology companies in the world. Silicon Valley is the reason that the state’s economy is the largest in America and among the largest in the world. For this reason, a law like this is likely to have far-reaching effects on almost all other industries and represents a shift in consumer privacy laws that started with Europe’s own General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

European Union General Data Protection Regulation

The GDPR came into force in May 2018, reportedly received over 95,000 consumer complaints in under a year (by January 2019). Although similar in scope to the Californian Act, the GDPR impacts more businesses and individuals. This is because even if you’re simply marketing your goods or services to the EU (while not necessarily operating within it), then the law applies to you. This means that consumers have more rights and businesses must practice more transparency in their use of personal data. In addition, sensitive identity information is given stricter conditions to protect users regarding things like race, gender, political affiliation, health-related data and more. Similar to the CA Consumer Privacy Act, businesses are required to express how they process personal data in clear and simple language rather than through legal jargon and longform fineprint.

Tour Operators

The Californian statute and EU regulation only applies to certain businesses, but that includes tour companies or DMCs to some degree. While the Californian Act applies to a fairly specific group of business, the GDPR on the other hand, applies to all organisations that process and store the data of EU citizens. So how can you be prepared for this new data era?

The need for good data practices and transparency is becoming more and more relevant to all companies. There are a few things that every business should be doing, regardless of whether they are impacted by either of these privacy laws. You never know when consumer privacy laws will affect or apply to you, so it’s a wise idea to be prepared ahead of time with these useful tips.

1. Have explicit consent from your customers to store and use their data. This should be in an opt-in format that offers concise and transparent details around how personal data is being processed.
2. Consider any software or third-party services that your business uses to collect data. These companies might be impacted even if you aren’t, so you may need to review contracts and discuss what they are doing to meet these new requirements.
3. Alter your privacy policy so that your company is in line with the change rather than behind it. Adapt your onboarding or sign-up process so that consent is as clear as possible.
4. Organise the data that you have stored, and be prepared to transfer or delete it or explain what it is used for if requested.

Beyond

Technology and the internet continues to evolve at an unprecedented rate and although the legislative process is slower, it is beginning to catch up. 2018 was the first time in history that more people were online than offline, and moving into 2020, this will only continue to grow. Now more than ever, it is crucial for companies to have good data practices because information continues to operate as an economy within the tech-industry. If you need help updating your website to ensure the information you collect is handled the right way, Tourism Tiger can help. Consumers are now aware that when they aren’t paying for a product, they are the product, which means that having control over your own online identity is becoming increasingly important.

---

Find this article useful?  See more here:

https://www.tourismtiger.com/blog/consumer-privacy-laws-and-tour-operators/

Google just made tracking your marketing campaigns a whole lot harder

The world’s most popular browser, Google Chrome, is following the likes of Apple’s Safari in restricting the use of third-party cookies and it’s our job here at the Tourism Marketing Agency to warn the tours and activity industry exactly why this is a big deal. The changes to Google’s cookie policy could mean that it will be much harder to track the efficacy of your marketing channels and campaigns. This means that you will no longer be able to use third-party cookies to see exactly which campaign or channel your bookings come in from.

little background on cookies For those who don’t know what a cookie is (the digital, less-delicious form), I’d like to explain in a little detail. A cookie is a piece of code that provides the website owner or webmaster with information on how a user interacts with a website — telling them how a user finds the website and also how they move through the webpages on the journey towards making a purchase. The two most well-known third-party cookies are Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel, and the insight they provide marketers is immeasurable. So, with this in mind, you will understand why Google Chrome’s intention to restrict third-party cookies is going to be a ‘ball ache’ for all tourism businesses and marketing professionals alike. Cross-platform targeting We’ve covered the theory; let’s look at a more practical example: cross-platform targeting. A typical cross-platform targeting strategy may look something like this: you run a Facebook campaign that directs users to a specific product page on your website and they don’t make a purchase. So, in order to hold on to the user’s attention, you run Google display ads that ‘follow’ them around the web so that they remember your brand later, when they are ready to make that purchase. Without third-party cookies, cross-platform targeting may no longer be possible. Why is Google changing its cookie policy? Google isn’t just trying to frustrate business owners and marketers the world over with this change in policy; it is doing this to protect its users’ privacy — which for some may seem enjoyably ironic... But Google really does seem to be taking the right steps to protect privacy and safeguard its users, however, it is not yet clear how this will work in conjunction with Google’s own advertising platform. How might this change benefit Google? One benefit to Google that will almost certainly come from this change, is the additional control they will have over where you spend your hard-earned ad budget. For a while now, I have been an advocate of Facebook Ads as they are a cheaper and, arguably, more targeted way of advertising to your target audience – especially as the price of Google Ads is ever increasing, which is partly due to OTAs (Check out my Battle for Tours and Activities – Part 2 for more on this topic). With Google’s changes, you won’t be able to tell in Google Analytics whether a booking on your website originated from a Facebook Ad. It’s obvious that this would benefit Google and harm Facebook. However, I do expect that you will still be able to see these transactions from within Facebook’s own analytics. I have mainly concentrated on channels like Facebook and Google, but consider how this may affect OTAs like TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide, etc. It may end up being harder and more expensive for them to track the user journey or to create their own paid ad campaigns on Google. Time will tell... What this means for your marketing campaigns Although it’s very early days, it seems that you will need to run your ads on both Facebook and Google, and that you will have to keep your campaigns separate to have a chance of seeing where your customers are arriving on your site. This will increase the amount of time required to review and report on your strategies as well as possibly making it more expensive for marketing agencies. Tracking conversions is something Google is looking at, along with Apple, who are at the early stage of developing a way that businesses and marketing professionals may be able to track conversion data without identifying the individual user. It’s still unknown whether this will be free or a paid feature… This move will do one of two things to your marketing efforts: i) you will continue to use multiple platforms and it will just be harder, or impossible in some cases, to know where a customer’s purchase journey started or, ii) you will be forced to choose one platform and concentrate your marketing efforts on this. I suspect many will still use multiple platforms, but I urge readers to be prepared to spend more time reporting and analysing how effective they are. How you can future proof yourself? If you really want to be able to market your business through any channel, you need to collate and own the data you collect on your customers at the booking stage. This enables you to make better marketing decisions and create better, more-informed strategies that adhere to the rules that Google and the others have set. Collecting data on potential customers will now take more effort through email campaigns or competitions rather than relying on scraping this information from Facebook or Google. Luckily, we have been doing the former with our own customers for years so this will help offset some of the upcoming ‘issues’. If you don’t know if you’re ready for the upcoming changes to Google’s cookie policy or you’d like some help with your digital marketing, please feel free to get in touch; we’re always happy to hear from new tour and activity companies. Google’s changes to its cookie policy also highlight something I have said many times before and I will say it again: without owning the data you collect on your customers, your business will not win in today’s digital world… and this will only become more apparent in the months and years to come. Cheers Chris

Chris Torres Founder & Director Tourism Marketing Agency – Turning Lookers into Bookers +44 141 221 2090 chris@tourismmarketing.agency tourismmarketing.agency 41 St.Vincent Place, 5th Floor, Room Eight, Glasgow, G1 2ER

Google My Business Optimisation - How to Turn Your Listing into a Client...

Blue Economy, Ocean Tourism, and Sustainable Ocean Infrastructure Conference

The Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association (APAEA), South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO), Ocean Policy Research Institute (OPRI-SPF), and Fiji National University (FNU) will co-host a conference on the “Blue Economy, Ocean Tourism, and Sustainable Ocean Infrastructure” in Nadi, Fiji on 25-27 February 2020. 

The conference will convene policy makers and experts from Asia and the Pacific to examine ocean-related development, sustainability challenges, and policy solutions, with a special focus on ocean tourism.

From 25 – 27 February 2020" in Nadi, Fiji.

Sustainable Island Tourism Conference, Santo, Vanuatu, November 27-29, 2019

LT&C member Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Foundation is cooperating with Sustainability Vanuatu, the Department of Tourism Vanuatu and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council to organize a Sustainable Islands Tourism Conference from November 27th-29th 2019 in Vanuatu.

Expect an authentic and innovative conference with different themes of relevance for sustainable tourism in small island states and hands-on local experiences and visits.

The detailed conference programme will be communicated soon via the website www.tourism.gov.vu.

Expressions of interest for participation and presentations can be send to the Director of Tourism: Jerry Spooner, jspooner@vanuatu.gov.vu.

Part of the conference will discuss the contribution that tourism can make to conservation, so it will be of high relevance for LT&C members from other island destinations!

SPTO launches Pacific Sustainable Tourism Newz Beat

SPTO’s Sustainable Tourism Development Division today launched their monthly update for the industry, to share key highlights in the region. SPTO CEO Chris Cocker noted that this was a key focus for the Organisation moving forward, “Sustainable tourism is a key issue in the Pacific particularly with the negative impacts of climate change and natural disasters we are experiencing and the forecasted increases in tourism arrivals over the next few years. As part of SPTOs commitment to ensure that we in the tourism industry are not working in silos, ensuring that the developments in the tourism industry are moving in the right direction as well as sharing of valuable information amongst the tourism industry, we are therefore launching the Pacific Sustainable Tourism Newz Beat to share success stories, best practices as well as the latest developments in the industry”

“This inaugural issue focusses on our greatest assets, our people, and the experiences that they have had in tourism and their careers either as small business entrepreneurs, communities or as individuals. It is fitting we do this given our theme for this year’s World Tourism Day is “Tourism and Jobs; a better future for all”. The Pacific’s tourism industry employs around 131,000 people of our region and World Bank expects by 2040 that an additional 127,000 jobs will be added to this current figure. The sustainable tourism industry itself is a fast growing sector with green jobs a key component in ensuring changes in the industry. Employment in this sector is set to grow promising and exciting opportunities for Pacific People”

“In this issue you will read of women from the community who are turning plastic bottles into amazing jewelry and craft, you will meet island entrepreneurs developing their business in an environmentally friendly manner learning new culinary skills, you will meet an artisan who has championed sustainable development his whole life, you will meet a career focused individual who is now based at the United Nations World Tourism Organisation and you will meet interns who are just starting their careers. The diversity in the sustainable tourism industry is amazing and provides business and career opportunities that are quite dynamic.”

“SPTO continues to work with our partners to promote sustainable tourism development at all levels and across all sectors to ensure we take a holistic approach to meeting the needs of our people whilst at the same time developing tourism in a responsible manner. Above all else our focus remains in ensuring that sustainable tourism remains in the forefront of our development agenda for the region moving forward.

“I would also like to thank the team at SPTO who have been working tirelessly to promote Pacific Tourism globally and to ensure that development in tourism is conducted in a holistic manner to safeguard our resources for future generations.

I wish everyone a happy World Tourism Day”.

Bokun - booking management platform owned by TripAdvisor

Bokun is a booking management platform owned by TripAdvisor, designed to help businesses and professionals in the travel and tours industry improve their visibility, attract more clients, increase their bookings, and grow their business.

The Bokun system provides businesses with their own booking website that they can customize to reflect their brand. products, and services. All content is managed from a single location, making it easy for business owners to manage and update their content, promotions, and prices.

With Bokun’s powerful booking engine, users are able to attract tourists and secure more bookings without swamping their schedules. Bokun’s Channel Manager feature allows users to utilize global travel apps such as TripAdvisor and Expedia to give their business a global reach and engage potential tourists and clients from different parts of the world.

Localization Capabilities

Bokun comes with localization tools to help you make your business accessible. It supports multiple languages, which is useful for attracting, engaging, and converting international tourists to paying customers. Bokun automatically translates your website’s content to any language and synchronizes the changes to all your channels and partners.

Flexible Pricing

Pricing can vary and can change at any moment. With Bokun, you have a software that helps you keep up with the fluctuating rates. Your monthly payment is based on your monthly revenue, hence, you won’t end up paying a fixed amount that’s more than what you’re earning. You can also manage multiple currencies and offers across various channels with ease.

Real-Time Inventory

Bokun helps you stay on top of your inventory, providing you a real-time picture of your stocks and resources whenever you need an update. This helps ensure that you are not selling or underselling. Bokun also provides the ability to create combo products and promotions, which is a strategy you can implement to grab the tourist’s attention.

Accept Payments Easily

Whether your customers prefer to pay via credit cards or online through a payment gateway, Bokun has got you covered. Integrations with the leading payment platforms and leading credit card providers help you facilitate and accept payments from anyone, anywhere, and anytime. On top of that, the payment channels are thoroughly secure, ensuring you run into payment troubles, such as fraudulent transactions.

Thailand and the fallout from mass tourism | DW Documentary

Within months, Google has rolled out new features in flights and hotels that, we dare say, make it a convenient one-stop shop to book travel sans encumbrances. Given its dominance in search, hotels and online travel agencies are on another planet if they are not feeling wary. — Raini Hamdi

In a span of just a few months, Google’s threat in booking travel is looming even larger. Indeed, Skift said last October Google’s new hotel search is presenting a greater threat to booking rivals. Now the tech giant has added a full-fledged destination site for hotels, without any major fanfare, and has potential implications for booking sites, as well as Airbnb, on the lines of what it has done with its already very-popular Google Flights.

Richard Holden, Google’s vice president of product management, travel, wrote about the new features in Google Flights and Hotels in a blog published late last week, and quietly slipped in a development we have been waiting for a year or so now, the full-fledged site for hotel meta search site and booking engine.

Once the users goes to Google’s hotel site and selects a hotel, a “Book a room” button is very prominent. When the user selects one of the online travel agency or other metasearch advertisers, the traveler navigates to the third-party site for booking. But there is often an option to book right on Google for Travelocity or Agoda, for example.

In an earlier February blog, Eric Zimmerman, Google’s director of travel product management said, “We’re evolving the way our hotel search works on smartphones to help users explore options and make decisions on their smallest screens. The new hotel search experience includes better price filtering, easier-to-find amenity information and the ability to book right from Google.”

Thus, if you’re going to Miami at the end of March, and there are over 300 hotel results for your search, you can now find the right hotel for your trip by applying a new “Deals” filter. This filter, said Holden, “uses machine learning to highlight hotels where one or more of our partners offer rates that are significantly lower than the usual price for that hotel or similar hotels nearby.”

Google Quietly Releases Its Hotel Booking Destination With Potentially Huge Implications

Raini Hamdi, Skift

 

- Mar 11, 2019 7:50 am

Prepare for Busy Season on TripAdvisor

Prepare for Busy Season on TripAdvisor 13 March 2019 | 11AM - 12PM (SGT) Register Now 70% of searches for travel during busy season happen over the next 3 months.* Is your listing ready to make the most of high traveller demand? Join us for tips and best practices from TripAdvisor experts on how to prepare a TripAdvisor strategy that drives results. • Get quick tips and solutions to make the most of TripAdvisor — so you can get back to your guests • Enhance your TripAdvisor presence and drive more potential guests to your listing • Learn how to use TripAdvisor analytics to benchmark yourself against your competitors — and make informed decisions

Spots are limited Register Now Please note: Webinar is in English only Can't attend live? Register today and we'll send you an on-demand link to watch at your convenience.