We will collect certain information from you when you make an enquiry or book a holiday with us. Depending on your interaction with us and what products and services you use, typically we collect the following personal information:
We also process and store records of the products and services you have enquired about or purchased from us, as well as collect and process information relevant to your booking (such as flights and accommodation details) that you have not booked through Mikutu, where this information has been passed to us by our partners and/or third parties.
If Mikutu is offering visa support or assisting you with applying for a visa you may be asked to provide additional information, including for example, your occupation, your father’s personal information, marital status, your spouse’s personal information, your children’s personal information, employment and education history and social media tags. If you are providing us with the personal information of another person, you must ensure that you inform these persons of the information that you intend to provide to us, and that those you represent are aware of the content of our Privacy Policy and consent to your acting on their behalf.
We may also receive information about you from other sources. These include business partners, such as our affiliate partners, including tour guides, and other independent third parties. Anything we receive from these sources may be combined with information provided by you.
Travel providers (e.g. accommodation, hotel, transport and other similar local providers (Travel Providers) may also share personal information about you with Mikutu, for example, to ensure fulfillment of your travel reservation, if you have support questions about a tour or holiday booked, or if any complaints or disputes arising about your reservation.
In the majority of cases, to make a payment via credit card for your tour/travel services, you will use the secure online booking engine on the relevant website or platform that you are using. In some limited cases you may provide us with your credit card details over the phone; for example if Mikutu needs to provide you with a refund, your bank details may be collected and recorded by us for the purposes of providing the refund only.
We ask that you do not email or send in writing your payment card details to us or any of our partners at any time.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third party vendors and providers, including payment providers, so you should review any privacy policy of third party vendor or providers to satisfy yourself as to how they protect and handle your personal information.
With your consent also, any calls with us, if any, may be recorded, and/or monitored for quality control, coaching and/or training and customer service purposes that assist in addressing your inquiries. As part of the recording, we may collect information such as the identity of the caller, the date and time of the call and the subject and resolution of the issue. For clarity, any financial information that may be provided during a telephone call is not recorded or logged by Mikutu.
On some occasions, we may engage professional photographers to take and obtain photos to use in our marketing materials. We ensure that all of our customers are notified prior to travelling on our holidays if a professional photographer is being engaged and you have the right to say no or opt-out of being included in any photos being taken for these purposes, including any subsequent content or images use.
We may contact you to seek your interest in taking part in research projects, surveys feedback and interviews. This may include contacting you with a post-booking or post-holiday feedback survey and asking to provide a score and comment on your experience.
As part of this contact, we may collect your full name, email address, booking number and departure code. You will be asked to provide a score and comment on your holiday experience. This information will be linked to any comments you make about your holiday.
Where you have provided the relevant details, we may also contact you in response to your feedback to discuss your comments.
We collect, hold and handle your personal information for a variety of business purposes (further information on each of which is set out below), including to:
Under applicable privacy and data protection laws (including EU/UK GDPR), for Mikutu to collect, hold, use, share and process your information we must have a purpose and legal basis to do so. The legal basis may differ depending on your interaction with us and what information we collect and process, which will fall under:
Consent – where required by applicable laws, we will obtain your prior consent prior to processing your personal information.
Providing your personal data to us is voluntary. However, we may not be able to fulfill your reservation and your experience may be affected if certain personal information is not provided. We may only be able to provide you with some products and services if we can only collect some personal data. For example, we can’t process your travel booking if we don’t collect your name and contact details.
We use your personal information to arrange and provide you with the products and services you have requested and booked. This includes booking any flights, transportation, accommodation, and activities. The following will provide more insight into these purposes:
Other than where it is in your vital interests or required by relevant laws, medical/health information can only be used by Mikutu with your consent. This is because medical/health information is considered sensitive and by consenting, you are showing us that you understand and agree to us processing this information. Providing medical/health information and consenting to its use by Mikutu is optional, however, it is highly recommended that information be provided (including if requested) for your safety and wellbeing.
Taking a photo or video is something many people love to do, especially as a way to capture special moments. This is likely to be the reason why you may be included in visual media taken on your holiday. On occasion, visual media captured by Mikutu group leaders and guides are so good that we may wish to use them in our brochures, social media or on our website for promotional purposes. There may also be a professional photographer scheduled on your holiday for the purpose of taking promotional images. In these cases, a consent and waiver form will be provided to you. You do not have to sign this consent or waiver form and providing such information is entirely voluntary. We will respect your privacy and your preferences when processing any personal information collected using visual media.
Mikutu may use your information for marketing purposes including:
We will only engage in direct marketing in accordance with the laws of the relevant country or jurisdiction you are located in.
To protect privacy rights and to ensure you have control over how we manage marketing with you we will take steps to limit direct marketing to a reasonable and proportionate level and only send you communications which we believe may be of interest or relevance to you based on the products and services which you have purchased or have registered your interest in purchasing to date.
You can change the way your browser manages cookies, which may be used to deliver online advertising, by following the settings on your browser. We recommend you routinely review the privacy notices and preference settings that are available to you on any social media platforms as well as your preferences within your account with us.
We conduct research and analyse your information, including feedback and comments, to help us improve our products and services and to enhance your customer experience, including customising online content, and to improve your booking and website experience. We also look for trends and future destinations and itinerary opportunities.
We may use your de-identified data for internal reporting (i.e. if a partnership was successful), creating new marketing strategies and to identify trends.
We may contact you to seek your interest in taking part in research projects, surveys and interviews. These interactions are designed to help us gain insight and understand certain things such as how to improve the services we provide, help us to understand our customers’ needs and expectations, what media they consume, what their concerns are, why do they travel, etc. Your information and details from our research activities may be stored or kept on file for future reference if relevant and will be de-identified where possible.
Your information may come to us in a variety of different ways. You may provide information directly to us or our partners, including guides, and other third parties (including insurance and medical providers) when communicating via email, phone, letter, web chat or in person. You may also provide us with your information by filling in an online or printed form, leaving feedback, completing a survey or subscribing to a newsletter.
Your information may also be provided to us by a friend/family member who is booking on your behalf.
In order to handle your enquiry, fulfil your product or service request or manage your booking, we may share your personal information with the following:
For clarity, for example, if you book flights through Mikutu, or your holiday includes a flight, the relevant personal information will be provided to the applicable airline. Similarly, if your holiday is operated by a non-Mikutu affiliated tour company, your personal information will be provided to that company for them to confirm you on the holiday and provide the relevant services. We also share your personal information with any travel providers or third-party local operators for the purpose of improving services and experiences, and to investigate complaints and/or disputes, where necessary. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties. SMS program opt-in is not transferable.
You should famillarise yourself with the privacy policies of all travel providers and tour operators you select to provide a holiday or travel-related services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party travel providers and tour operators with whom you may choose to book travel product and services.
We share your personal information with third parties that help us operate, provide, improve, integrate, customize, support and market our products and services. This includes the following:
We seek to ensure that your information is protected at all times including that these third parties have agreed confidentiality restrictions and only use any personal information we share with them or which they collect on our behalf solely for the purpose of providing the contracted service to us.
We may share your information with relevant regulators, which may include privacy regulators and supervisory authorities in other jurisdictions, and with courts and law enforcement to comply with all applicable laws, regulations and rules, and requests of law enforcement (e.g. police), regulatory and other governmental agencies
We also share personal information with insurance providers and/or medical personnel, which may be for identification of fraud or error, for regulatory reporting and compliance, or if we believe the disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a threat to life, health or safety.
We may share in aggregate, statistical form, non-personal information regarding the visitors to our website, traffic patterns, and website usage with our advertisers.
We do not and will not sell your personal information under any circumstances.
As we have stated earlier, it is necessary for us to share your information with partners and third parties, many of which are located overseas. When we transfer your information overseas, we seek to ensure appropriate privacy, confidentiality and security measures are in place, and that we comply with all applicable data protection and privacy laws.
In some jurisdictions, including the EEA, the UK and Australia, data protection laws restrict transferring personal information outside the jurisdiction. We take appropriate steps to ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection or that we are able to rely on an appropriate derogation under applicable privacy and data protection laws.
Where we receive requests for information from law enforcement or regulators, we carefully validate these requests before any personal information is disclosed.
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:
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.
Under certain data protection laws, including the EU/UK GDPR, you may also (subject to certain exceptions):
We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing the personal information requested to you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.
We will only perform the activities outlined above to the extent that such activities will not compromise privacy, security or any other legal interests.
If you have any concerns or complaints about how we are collecting or processing your personal information, you can complain to your local data protection authority. We would ask that you first contact us to seek to resolve the concern or complaint in the first instance.
We retain and store most information about you in computer systems and databases operated by either us or our external service providers. Some information about you may be recorded in paper files that we store securely.
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. In some circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time, for instance where we are required to do so in accordance with legal, regulatory, tax or accounting requirements.
In specific circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time so that we have an accurate record of your dealings with us in the event of any complaints or challenges, or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation relating to your personal information or dealings.
Mikutu is dedicated to keeping your personal information secure. We have implemented various physical, electronic and managerial security procedures in order to protect your information and reduce the risk of loss and misuse, and from unauthorized access, modification, disclosure and interference.
We have put in place adequate procedures to deal with any actual or suspected personal information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of any data breach where we are legally required to do so.
Whilst we take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is secure, we would ask you to be aware that the internet is inherently insecure, so please take precautions when disclosing any personal information online to us.
