As part of its operation of the website Swisstravelmarket.ch, Swiss Travel Market BD GmbH is responsible for the collection, handling, and use of your personal information, as well as compliant data processing with Swiss law.

Our data protection policy assures the appropriate level of security because your trust is important to us. Naturally, we comply with the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), the Ordinance to the Federal Act on Data Protection (OFADP), the Telecommunications Act (TCA) and other data protection provision, such as the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union (GDPR).

Listed below is information you should review so that you know what data we collect about you and the purposes for which we use it.

  • Scope, processing, and purpose of collecting, storing, and using personal data
  • when you visit Swisstravelmarket.ch

Our servers make a temporary record of each access and store it in a log file when you visit our website. The following data is collected and stored, without any action on your part, until we automatically delete it after 12 months at the latest:

  • Internet Protocol address of the computer that is accessed
  • on the date and time of access
  • as well as the name and URL of the file accessed
  • the website from which access is made
  • in addition to the operating system of your computer and the browser you use
  • and the language settings on your browser, you should also consider the country from which you access the Internet
  • as well as the provider of your Internet access

We collect and process the data to provide you with our website (establishing a connection), to protect our Internet offering in a long-term way and to allow us to make improvements to our Internet offering, as well as for internal statistical purposes. As per the provisions of Art. 6 para. 1,of GDPR, this is our legitimate interest. Furthermore, IP addresses are used to determine the country of residence of a website visitor and set the language accordingly. As well as being used to analyse IP addresses for statistical purposes, the IP addresses are also used to detect attacks on Swisstravelmarket.ch’s network infrastructure.

On our website, we also use cookies and pixels to display advertisements that are tailored to you, as well as to run web analysis services.

  • Using our contact form

Getting in touch with us is as simple as filling out a contact form. Your personal information will be required:

  • Title
  • First name and surname
  • Address (street, number, town/city, postcode) (optional)
  • Telephone number (optional)
  • E-mail address

Your data is only used to provide you with the best answers possible, tailored to your individual needs. As outlined in article 6, paragraph 1 f the GDPR, we have a legitimate interest in processing your contact request. For contact details, see Section 11 further below. You may object to the processing of your data at any time.

  • By subscribing to our newsletter

Our website offers the option to subscribe to our newsletter. This requires registration. The following information must be provided during registration:

  • Title
  • First name and surname
  • E-mail address

In addition, you can also provide additional information (such as your date of birth and country) voluntarily. In order to better align ourselves with your interests, we use this data to personalise information and offers sent to you.

Upon registering, you agree to the data being processed for the purpose of sending you the newsletter regularly, for analysing user behaviour statistically and for optimising the newsletter. The consent you provide constitutes our legal basis for processing your e-mail address in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1,f GDPR. In order to carry out advertising measures, we may hire third parties to handle the technical processing of the data.

You may unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time using the link at the end of each newsletter. The reason for your unsubscription can be indicated when unsubscribing. The personal data you provide when unsubscribing will be deleted. Any further processing will only be done in an anonymised form for the purposes of optimising our newsletter.

An emphasis is placed on the analysis of data during the distribution of the newsletter

  • In the case of third-party reservations, bookings, or orders

On our website, there are many ways to make bookings or reservations or request informational material or other services. We use third parties to provide these services. If you are redirected to our partners, you will be notified accordingly. Types of data collection vary with different services. An example would be:

  • Title and/or company
  • First name and surname
  • Address (street, number, postcode, town/city, country)
  • Other contact details (e-mail address, telephone number)
  • Credit card details, where required

Your data is generally collected by the relevant provider directly or for certain offers, passed along by us to the relevant provider. The further data processing shall be conducted in accordance with the privacy policies of the relevant provider. The legal basis for the processing of the aforementioned data lies in the performance of a contract within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR.

  • Data used for advertising purposes
  • Creation of artificial usage profiles

When you visit our website, we collect and analyse your data to tailor our services and information to your needs (on-site targeting). Cookies may be used for the corresponding data processing (see also under Section 6).

An analysis of your behaviour can be used to establish what is known as a usage profile. The usage data is combined only with artificial data and never with data that has not been pseudonymised.

We integrate Facebook remarketing pixels into the website in order to allow for personalised marketing in social networks. The pixel is linked to your account if, while visiting our website, you are logged into one of the social networks mentioned. If you want to prevent this link from being made, log out of your account before visiting our website. The relevant social networks let you customise your advertising settings within your user profile.

It is a legitimate interest under Art. 6 paragraph 1 lit, f GDRP to create pseudonymised user profiles for advertising and analysis purposes. These rules apply to the data processing operations described in Section 2. Direct marketing and analysis of the use of our website constitute legitimate interests.

  • Retargeting

This website uses retargeting technologies. The technologies analyse your user behaviour on our website so that we can show you advertisements on partner websites that are tailored specifically to you. User behaviour is collected in pseudonymised form.

Cookie-based retargeting is most common (see Section 6).

Users’ behaviour patterns will also be made available to those concerned with advertising networks, especially network operators. During certain campaigns, we may also communicate relevant details to our affiliates, including Swisstravelmarket.ch. These details can then be used to calculate billing and ad effectiveness, which helps us understand our users’ and customers’ needs and improve future campaigns. Additionally, this may relate to the fact the booking or purchase of an item can be traced back to an advertisement.

We use Google AdWords Remarketing and Doubleclick by Google, both provided by Google Inc. This allows us to show ads based on previous website visits. DoubleClick cookies are used so that Google can recognise your browser when you visit other websites. Cookies collect information about your visit to these websites (including your IP address) and transfer it to a Google server in the U.S. to be stored there.

As a result, Google will use your information to analyze your use of the website based on the advertisements placed, in order to provide the website operator with reports about website activity and advertisements and other services related to how the website and Internet are used. In certain situations, Google will also transfer this information to third parties, such as when this is required by law or if the third parties process the data on Google’s behalf. IP addresses are not linked to any other Google data under any circumstances.

We also use Google Tag Manager to manage usage-based advertising services. There is no cookie on the Tag Manager tool itself, and no personal information is collected. Instead, the tool ensures the activation of other tags that may, for their part, gather specific data . In case you have deactivated your domain or cookie level tracking, this deactivation will still mean that all tracking tags implemented through Google Tag Manager will be deactivated.

You can disable or refuse all cookies in your browser at any time to prevent retargeting (see Section 6 below).

  • Transfer of data to third parties

We pass your personal data on only if you have expressly consented to this, if there is a legal obligation to do so or if this is required in order to enforce our rights, in particular in order to enforce claims resulting from the relationship between you and Switzerland Tourism.

We also pass your data on to third parties where this is required in conjunction with use of the website in order to provide you with the services requested or to analyse your user behaviour. If this is required for the purposes specified in the preceding sentence, your data may also be passed on to third parties abroad. If the website contains links to websites of third parties, Swisstravelmarket.ch will no longer have any influence on the collection, processing, storage or use of personal data by third parties once you click on such links and assumes no responsibility in this regard.

  • Transfer of personal data abroad

Swisstravelmarket.ch is also entitled to pass your personal data on to third-party companies (commissioned service providers) abroad, which is required for the data processing described in this privacy policy. The said third-party companies are obliged to protect your data to the same extent as we are. We ensure that the protection of your personal data conforms to that in Switzerland or the European Union at all times if the level of data protection in a country differs from that in Switzerland or the European Union.

  • Data security

In order to protect your personal data from being manipulated, lost or misused by others, we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures. We are continually improving our security measures.

We recommend you treat your payment information as confidential and to close any browser window once your communication with us is over, especially if you are using a shared computer.

Additionally, we are committed to protecting data privacy within our organisation. We have a duty of confidentiality and require data protection compliance from all of our employees and service providers.

  • Cookies

By using cookies, we can simplify, enhance, and improve your experience on our website in many ways. When you visit our website, your web browser stores cookies on the hard drive of your computer. No personal information is transferred to us with the use of cookies, nor do they damage your computer. For example, we use cookies to better align ourselves with your individual interests and provide you with personalised information, offers, and advertisements. By using them, we do not receive new personal information about you. The vast majority of internet browsers accept cookies by default. If you wish, you can configure your browser so that it does not store cookies or display a message whenever a new cookie is received.

In some cases, disabling cookies may prevent you from using certain parts of our site.

  • Tracking tools

A variety of tracking tools are used on our website. They monitor the activities you perform on our website. This is for the purposes of designing our website based on the needs of our users and continuously optimising it. During this process, pseudonymised usage profiles are created as well as small text files stored on your computer (“cookies”).

  • Social media plugins

The social plugins described below are used on our website. The plugins are disabled on our website as standard and therefore do not send any data. By clicking on the corresponding social media button, you can enable the plugins (known as the Shariff solution).

If these plugins are enabled, your browser establishes a direct connection with the servers for the relevant social networks as soon as you call up one of our websites. The content of the plugins is transferred from the social network to your browser directly and integrated by your browser into the website. The plugins can of course be disabled again with just a click of the mouse.

  • Social plugins from Facebook

For our online presence to be more personal, we use Facebook plugins. We use the “LIKE” or “SHARE” buttons for this purpose. That is an offering from US company Facebook Inc. (1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA).

Facebook receives information about your browser calling up the corresponding website through the plugin, even if you don’t own a Facebook account or aren’t logged in. This information (including your IP address) is transferred by your browser to one of Facebook’s servers in the United States and stored there. Logging into Facebook may allow Facebook to associate the visit to our website with your account. When social plugins are used, such as the “LIKE” and “SHARE” buttons, the corresponding data is also transmitted directly to Facebook servers. The information is published on Facebook and shown to your Facebook friends.

Among the uses of this data are advertising, market research, and designing Facebook pages based on the needs of users. Due to this, Facebook develops usage, interest, and relationship profiles, as well as to analyse your use of our website in relation to the advertisements placed on Facebook, to inform other Facebook users about your activity on our website, and to provide other services related to your use of Facebook.

Visiting our site without logging out of your Facebook account prohibits Facebook from assigning your online presence data to your profile. Facebook’s privacy policies details how data is collected, processed, and used by Facebook, as well as your rights and options for protecting your privacy. You can read the Facebook privacy policies for more information.

  • Analysis of newsletter use

We use third-party e-mail marketing services to send our newsletters. We may therefore use web beacons (tracking pixels) or similar tools in our newsletters. Web beacons are invisible graphic images that are 1 x 1 pixels in size and are associated with a subscriber’s user ID.

We can analyse these services to determine whether or not our subscribers have opened our newsletter. Our newsletter recipients’ click behaviour can also be tracked and analysed. These data are used to compile statistics and to optimise the newsletter in terms of content and structure. Our newsletter is tailored to the individual interests of the recipient, so we can present information and offers that are interesting to each recipient. If you delete the newsletter, the tracking pixel is removed.

Our newsletter will not include tracking pixels if you set your e-mail software to not display HTML.

  • Note about data transfer to the US

Users residing or based in Switzerland should be aware that US authorities have implemented monitoring measures to allow the storage of all personal data related to all persons whose data has been transferred from Switzerland to the US. In this regard, there are no differentiations, limitations or exceptions based on the aim pursued, and no objective criteria that allow restriction of access to, and use of, the data by US authorities and its later use to very specific, strictly limited purposes that may justify the intervention associated with both access to this data and use thereof. Further, we are pointing out that in the United States, affected persons from Switzerland have no judicial remedies that would grant them access to their data and allow them to correct or delete it, and that they do not have solid legal protection against US authorities’ general access rights. This legal and factual situation is explicitly provided to the persons affected to make an informed decision regarding consent to the use of their data.

Users residing in EU member countries should know that, from the perspective of the EU, the US does not have sufficient levels of data protection, among other reasons mentioned above. However, suppose recipients of data (such as Google and Facebook ) are located in the US; in that case, we will ensure that your data is protected at an appropriate level by our partners, either by entering into a contract with them or by securing their certification under the EU-US Privacy Shield.

  • Inquiry, rectification, erasure, and restriction of processing; portability of data

The right to request information about your personal data is yours free of charge. Additionally, you have the right to correct any inaccurate data and request the deletion of your personal data unless there is a statutory storage obligation or another legal ground under which we may continue the processing. You also have the right to reclaim from us the data you have given us (right to data portability). On request, we also pass the data on to a third party of your choice. Upon request, we can provide a common file format for the data.

For the preceding purposes, you can contact us via e-mail at [email protected]. Proof of identity may be required at our sole discretion.

  • Data storage

Personal information is only stored as long as needed

  • For the purpose of tracking advertising and analysis within the scope of our legitimate interest
  • Your data may be used to provide you with services that you request (for example, a newsletter) or with your consent.
  • to comply with legal obligations

Contract data is kept longer by us, as statutory storage requirements require this. Regulations relating to accounting and taxation compel us to retain data. These regulations require that business communications, agreements, and accounting documents be saved for a maximum of ten years. As soon as we no longer need the data to provide the services to you, we will block it. Therefore, the data may only be used for accounting and tax purposes.

  • Complaints may be directed to a data protection supervisory authority

An individual can file a complaint at any time with a supervisory authority for data protection.

General

This page was last amended on 11/02, 2022. If you have any questions or remarks about our legal indications or data protection, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]