Privacy Statement
First things first – your privacy is important to us. We know that’s what all these kinds of notices say, but we really mean it. You’ve placed your trust in us by using Booking.cn services, and we value that trust. That means we’re committed to protecting and safeguarding any personal data you give us. We act in our customers' interest and are transparent about the processing of your personal data.
This document describes how your personal data is collected and used, hopefully provided in a readable and transparent manner. As an added bonus, it also tells you how to contact us if you have questions about your personal data, which we’re more than happy to answer. You should also check out our separate Cookie Statement, which tells you how Booking.cn makes use of cookies and other similar technologies. For a better understanding of what we mean by “Trip,” “Trip Provider,” “Trip Service,” and “Trip Reservation,” please read the Booking.cn Terms and Conditions.
We might amend the Privacy Statement from time to time. If you care about your privacy, visit this page regularly to know exactly where you stand. If we make changes to the Privacy Statement which will have an impact on you (e.g. if we intend to process your personal data for other purposes than communicated in the past in this Privacy Statement), we'll notify you of these changes before the new activities begin.
If you disagree with this Privacy Statement, you should discontinue using our services. If you agree with our Privacy Statement, then you’re all set to book your next stay.
We can’t help you book the perfect accommodations or other travel related services without information, so when you use our services there are certain pieces of information we ask for. This is pretty basic stuff – your name, preferred contact details, the names of anybody traveling with you, and your payment information. You can decide to submit special requests for your upcoming Trip (e.g. certain preferences). In addition to this, we also collect information from your computer, phone tablet or other device you're using to access our services. This can include the IP address, the browser you're using, and your language settings. There are also situations when we receive information about you from others or automatically collect other information. This is a basic overview of the information we collect, but if you’d like to know more specifics, we go into a lot more detail below. Read more
The main reason we ask you for personal details is a very good one – it’s to help administer your online bookings and ensure you get the best service possible. We may also use your personal data to contact you and inform you about our latest deals and special offers that we think would interest you. There are other uses, too – if you’d like to find out what they are, keep reading for a more detailed explanation. Read more
There are different parties integrated into the Booking.cn services in various ways for various reasons. The main purpose is to share your data relevant for your Trip with the Trip Provider to complete your Trip Reservation. There are also other parties that can receive some of your data, which are parties involved to provide you with the Booking.cn services. These include financial institutions, advertisers, affiliates of the Booking.com corporate family and other affiliates of the Booking Holdings Inc. corporate family, or in some cases if we are required by applicable law, governmental or other authorities. Below we’ll go into more detail about how the information you share with us is used and exchanged with these parties. Read more
Booking.cn is part of the Booking Holdings Inc. corporate family. Read here to see how your data could be shared within the Booking Holdings corporate group. Read more
Booking.cn can help you and Trip Providers exchange information and requests about their services and existing Trip Reservations, directing the communications through Booking.cn. If you want to find out more about how Booking.cn receives and handles these communications, read on here. Read more
We may offer versions of our regular website that have been optimized for mobile (and tablet) browsing. These mobile websites process the personal details you give us in much the same way as our website does, and they also allow you to use location services to find Trip Services nearby, if you want us to. Read more
The use of social media services may be integrated with the Booking.cn services in various ways, which can involve us collecting some of your personal data or the social media provider receiving some of your information. If you’d like to learn more about how this information is used and exchanged, keep reading. Read more
We adhere to appropriate and adequate procedures to prevent unauthorized access to, and the misuse of, personal data that we process. Read more
Unless otherwise indicated, Booking.cn is a service you're only allowed to use if you're over 18 years old. We only process information about children with the consent of the parents or legal guardians or when the information is provided to use by the parents or legal guardian. Read more
You always have the right to review the personal information we keep about you. You can request an overview of your personal data by emailing us at the email address below. If you want to find out more about your rights to control your personal data, read more here. Read more
Booking.com Customer Service Center (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., located in Shanghai, China, controls the processing of personal data on its websites. Read more
Ok, so you’re looking for some more specifics. Here’s an in-depth view of the information we collect.
Booking.cn collects and uses information that you provide us. When you make a Trip Reservation, you are (as a minimum) asked for your name and email address. Depending on the Trip Reservation, we might also ask for your home address, telephone number, payment information, date of birth, the names of any guests traveling with you, and any preferences (e.g. meal preferences or any mobility restrictions) you have for your Trip.
If you need to get in touch about our services, for example by contacting the customer service team or communicating via other means (e.g. using social media, or communicating with your booked Trip Provider through us), information will be collected from you there, too. Guests can also be asked to provide a review to help ensure future guests get exactly what they’re looking for. Information collected from you included in your reviews, like your display name and avatar if you choose one.
There are also other instances where you’ll provide us with information. For example, if you’re browsing with your mobile device, you can decide to enable Booking.cn to see your current location or grant access to your contact details – this helps us provide you with the best possible service and experience (e.g. to see our city guides, the nearest restaurants & attractions to your location, or other recommendations). You can also open a user account, which allows you to save your personal settings, upload photos, review previous bookings, or plan and manage future reservations or benefit from other features only available to account holders (such as incentives or other benefits we might offer). You can also log in with your Booking.com account on Booking.cn. In order to successfully create and log into any account via www.booking.cn, you have to enter and verify your telephone number as described in the log in process.
You can decide to participate in referral programs or sweepstakes, which involves providing us with personal data. In addition to that, you can provide us with feedback or ask for help with using the Booking.cn travel services.
Of course, you might not just be making a Trip Reservation for yourself. You might be doing a Trip with other guests whose details you provide as part of the Trip Reservation, or you might make a Trip Reservation on behalf of someone else. You might be offered the option to create a business account. If you maintain a business account, you may also be offered to create an address book to facilitate business travel, as well as manage the others' bookings. In some cases, you can use Booking.cn to share information with others. This might take the form of forwarding a wish list or participating in referral programs, but such information can only be used as described in the offered interface – check the details there if you want to learn more.
However, now we should point out that it’s your responsibility to ensure the person or people you've provided personal information about are aware that you’ve done so, and have accepted how Booking.cn uses their information (as described in this useful privacy statement).
Even if you don’t end up making a Trip Reservation (and when you do), when you visit our websites, we automatically collect certain information. This includes your IP address, the date and time you accessed our services, the hardware, software or internet browser you used and information about your computer’s operating system, like application versions and your language settings. We also collect information about clicks and which pages were shown to you.
If you're using a mobile device, we might also collect data that identifies your mobile device, device-specific settings and characteristics, location details, and other system activity. When you make a reservation, our system registers through which means and from which websites you made your reservation or entered the Booking.cn websites.
It’s not just the things you tell us, though – we might also receive information about you from other sources. These include business partners, like affiliate partners, Booking.com B.V., or other subsidiaries of the Booking.com corporate family, other affiliates of the Booking Holdings Inc. corporate family (see here), and other independent third parties, and anything we get from them can be combined with information provided by you. For example, the Booking.cn reservation services are not only made available by Booking.cn, but may also be integrated into services of affiliate partners you can find online. When you use some of these, you provide the reservation details to our business partner, who then forwards your details to us. Our services may also integrate third-party service providers to facilitate payment between bookers and Trip Providers. These service providers share payment information, so your Trip Reservation can be administered and handled, making sure everything goes as smoothly as possible for you.
Another example is how communication services are integrated into our platforms to let you connect with the booked Trip Provider about your stay. When we do, metadata about communication activities (e.g. where you called, who you are, the date and length of the call, etc.) can be collected. We might also receive information about you to deliver you more relevant advertisements, like additional cookie data made available by social media partners. Read under Why does Booking.cn collect and use your personal data? for more information. We may offer you to link your account to for example your social media account, in which case personal data might be shared with Booking.cn by that social media provider, but only when you don't mind them doing so. You always have the choice to not share this data.
Trip Providers might share information about you – this might happen if you have support questions about your pending reservation when disputes arise about a Trip Reservation (though naturally, we don’t like it when that happens).
By agreeing to this Privacy Statement, you agree to the collection and use your personal data collected from all of the resources as described above.
The information collected about you can be used for various purposes. Your personal data may be used in the following ways:
A. Trip Reservations: First and foremost, your personal data will be used to complete and administer your online Trip Reservation! This includes sending you communications related to your Trip Reservation like confirmations, modifications, and reminders.
B. Customer service: Customers benefit from international customer service in more than 20 languages, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sharing your relevant details, such as reservation information or information about your user account with the global customer service staff allows us to respond when you need support– including helping you find an appropriate Trip Provider and responding to any questions you might have about your Trip Reservation (or anything, for that matter).
C. Account facilities: Booking.cn users can create a user account on our websites or log into their Booking.com account. The information you give will be used to administer this account, allowing you to do a number of useful things. You can manage your Trip Reservations, take advantage of special offers, make future Trip Reservations easily and manage your personal settings. Managing personal settings can allow you to keep and share lists, share photos, see previously searched Trip Services easily, and check other travel-related information you have provided. It can also allow you to see any reviews you have submitted. If you want, you may share certain information in your user account by creating a public profile that’s associated with either your own first name or a screen name of your choice.Business account holders can save contact details in their account facility, manage their business reservations, and link other account holders to the business account.
D. Online groups: We might enable users with an account to join and interact with each other through online groups or forums.
E. Marketing activities: Your information can be used for marketing activities. These activities include:
F: Communicating with you: There may be other times when you can be contacted, including by email, mail, phone or text message – which method we choose depends on the contact information you previously shared with us. There could be a number of reasons for this, including:
G. Market research: Our customers will sometimes be asked to take part in market research. When you're invited to participate, review the information provided to better understand what personal data is collected and how it is used.
H. Improving our services: Personal data can also be used for analytical purposes. This is part of our mission to improve our services and enhance the user experience, but can also be used for testing purposes, troubleshooting, and improving the functionality and quality of our online travel services. The main goal here is to optimize and customize our online platform to your needs, making our site easier and more enjoyable to use. The aim is to only use pseudonymized data for these analytical purposes.
I. Guest reviews and other destination-related information: During and after the Trip you book through us, you might be invited to submit a review. We can also enable guests traveling with you or on whose behalf you have booked to provide a review. This request asks for information about the Trip Provider or the destination. Account holders can choose to either display a review with a screen name instead of their real name (which can be chosen in the user account facility), or else choose to display a review anonymously. Adding an avatar is also possible. By completing a guest review, you are agreeing that it can be displayed on (as described in detail in our Terms and Conditions) the relevant Trip Provider information page on our websites, on www.booking.com, our social media accounts, and social media apps, or on the online platform of the relevant Trip Provider or business partner’s website. This is to inform other travelers about the quality of the Trip Service you used, the destination you have chosen or other experiences you choose to share.
J. Call monitoring: When you make calls to the customer service team, an automated telephone number detection system can be used to connect your telephone number to your existing reservations – this can help save time for both you and our customer support staff. The customer service staff still might ask for authentication, which ensures your reservation details are kept confidential. During calls with the customer service team, live listening might be conducted, or calls might be recorded for quality control and training purposes, which includes the usage of the recordings for the handling of claims and fraud detection purposes. Not all calls are recorded, recordings are kept for a limited amount of time, then automatically deleted later on, unless it is necessary to keep these recording for a longer period, including for fraud investigation and legal purposes.
K. Promotion of a safe and trustworthy service: In order to create a trustworthy environment for you, your fellow travelers, business partners, and Trip Providers, personal data may be used for the detection and prevention of fraud and other illegal or unwanted activities. Similarly, personal data may be used for risk assessment and security purposes, including the authentication of users and reservations. For such purposes, certain reservations may need to be stopped or put reservations on hold until we've finished our assessment.
L. Legal purposes: Finally, in certain cases, your information might need to be used to handle and resolve legal disputes, for regulatory investigations and compliance, to enforce the terms of use of the Booking.cn online reservation service, or to comply with lawful requests from law enforcement.
Providing your personal data to Booking.cn is voluntary. However, depending on the type of service you want to use, we might only be able to provide you with this service if certain personal data is collected. For instance, we cannot process your Trip Reservation if we don't collect your name and contact details.
If we use automated means to process personal data that produces legal effects or significantly affects you, suitable measures will be implemented to safeguard your rights and freedoms, including the right to obtain human intervention.
By agreeing to this Privacy Statement, you agree to the collection, processing and use of your personal data for purposes A through L as described above.
In certain circumstances, your personal data will be shared with third parties.
All service providers are required to continue to safeguard your personal data adequately.
When you make a reservation on a business partners’ websites or apps, certain personal data that you give them such as your name and email address, your address, payment details and other relevant information, can be forwarded to us to finalize and administer your Trip Reservation. If customer service is provided by the business partner, your details relevant to your reservation may be shared with the business partners (as and when needed) in order to provide you with appropriate and efficient support. When you make a reservation through a business partners’ websites, the business partner can receive certain parts of your personal data related to the specific reservation such as your name and email address. This is for their own internal purposes (such as analytical purposes) and, if requested by you, for the administration of loyalty programs or marketing.
When you make a reservation on a business partners’ website or app, take the time to read their privacy notice if you want to understand how these business partners may process your personal data. For fraud detection and prevention purposes and as strictly necessary, information about our users may also be exchanged with business partners.
The transmission of personal data as described in this Privacy Statement may include overseas transfers of personal data to countries and regions outside of China.
By agreeing to this Privacy Statement, you agree to the sharing and processing of your personal data as described in paragraphs 1-6 above.
Booking.cn is an affiliate entity of Booking.com B.V. and thereby part of the Booking Holdings Inc. corporate family. See here for more info: https://www.bookingholdings.com/
We might receive personal data about you from other companies of the Booking Holdings Inc. corporate family or share your personal data with them for the following purposes:
A. To provide services (including to make, administer, and manage reservations or handle payments);
B. To provide customer support services;
C. To detect, prevent, and investigate fraudulent, other illegal activities and data breaches;
D. For analytical and product improvement purposes;
E. To provide personalized offers or send you marketing with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law;
F. To ensure compliance with applicable laws.
We work closely together with Booking.com B.V., located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (“Booking.com”) to provide you the reservation services and therefore share your personal data with Booking.com B.V.. Booking.com B.V. processes your personal data in accordance with its privacy statement.
Customers and Trip Providers partners are offered various means to communicate about the Trip Services and existing Trip Reservations. This allows you and your Trip Provider to contact Booking.cn, including Booking.com, with questions about your reservation or about your Trip Reservation partners through the My Booking Page, and other channels that may be made available.
Communications may be accessed and automated systems may be used to review, scan, and analyze communications for security purposes; fraud prevention; compliance with legal and regulatory requirements; investigations of potential misconduct; product development and improvement; research; customer engagement, including to provide you with information and offers that we believe may be of interest to you; and customer or technical support. We reserve the right to block the delivery of or review communications that we, in our sole discretion, believe may contain malicious content, spam, or may pose a risk to you, accommodation partners, the Booking.com corporate group, or others. Note, all communications sent or received using Booking.cn or Booking.com communication tools will be received and stored by Booking.cn and/or Booking.com. Business partners through whose platform you made the reservation and Trip Providers may choose to communicate with you directly by email or other channels that Booking.cn does not control.
We may offer versions of our regular website that have been optimized for mobile (and tablet) browsing. These mobile websites process the personal details you give us in much the same way as our website does, and they also allow you to use location services to find Trip Services nearby, if you want us to. You may grant us access to your location data or contact details in order to provide services requested by you. When you upload a picture from your mobile device, your picture may also be tagged with your location information. Please read the instructions of your mobile device to understand how to change the settings.
We can make use of something known as cross-device tracking in order to optimize our services and marketing activities. This may be done with or without the use of cookies. For more information about cookies and other similar technologies, please see our Cookie Statement. With cross-device tracking, user behavior can be tracked across multiple devices. As part of cross-device tracking, data collected from a particular browser or mobile device may be combined with another computer or device linked to the computer or device from which the data was collected.
In order to optimize the content of newsletters, the searches and reservations made from different computers and devices may be combined. You can unsubscribe from newsletters anytime.
Personalized advertisements shown to you on other websites or in apps, can be offered based on your activities on linked computers and devices. By amending your cookie settings on your device (see in our Cookie Statement under “What are your choices”), you can change your cross-device tracking settings for advertisement purposes. You should know that logging out of your user account will not actually mean that you no longer receive personalized advertisements.
Here at Booking.cn, we use social media in different ways. We use it partly to facilitate the use of online reservation services, but also to promote Trip Providers’ travel-related products and services, as well as to advertise, improve, and facilitate our own services. You're free not to use the social media features.
When you connect to a social media messaging service without having a Booking.cn user account, the information you choose to share with us may include the basic information available in your social media profile (including your email address, status updates and a list of your contacts). This information will be used to help provide you with the service you requested – for example, to forward a message you want to send to your contacts or to create a personalized user experience on our websites. It means that we can customize our services to fit your needs, connecting you and your friends with the best travel destinations and analyzing and enhancing our travel-related services. Your social media provider will be able to tell you more about how they use and process your data whenever you connect with Booking.cn through them, for instance by combining personal data they collect when you use Booking.cn through them with information they collect when you use other online platforms linked with your social media provider.
We observe reasonable procedures to prevent unauthorized access to, and the misuse of, personal data.
We use appropriate business systems and procedures to protect and safeguard the personal data you give us. We also use security procedures and technical and physical restrictions for accessing and using the personal data on our servers. Only authorized personnel are permitted to access personal data in the course of their work.
We will retain your personal data for as long as we deem it necessary to enable you to use our services, to provide our services to you (including maintaining the online user account (if created)), to comply with applicable laws, resolve disputes with any parties and otherwise as necessary to allow us to conduct our business, including to detect and prevent fraud or other illegal activities. All personal data we retain will be subject to this Privacy Statement. If you have a question about a specific retention period for certain types of personal data we process about you, please contact us using the contact details provided below.
The services offered by Booking.cn are not directed at children under 18 years old. For children younger than 18 years old, the use of any of our services is only allowed with the valid consent of a parent or a guardian. In limited cases as part of a reservation, purchase of other travel-related services, or in exceptional other circumstances (such as features addressed to families), Booking.cn may collect and use information of children only as provided by the parent or guardian or with their consent. If we become aware that we process information of a child under 18 years old without the valid consent of a parent or guardian, we reserve the right to delete it.
We want you to be in control of how your personal data is used by us. You can do this in the following ways:
We rely on you to ensure that your personal data is complete, accurate and current. Please inform us of any changes to or inaccuracies of your personal data by contacting us immediately. When you request deletion of your personal data in the situation as described above in this section, we will aim to delete your personal data as required by applicable law in a reasonably timely manner, except that we may need to retain your personal data for a longer period for compliance of Chinese law. In any other instances, we and other entities of the Booking.com corporate family reserve the right to retain and process your personal data for a period to the extent not in violation of the law applicable to us or such entities.
By agreeing to this Privacy Statement, you agree that your personal data may be retained longer than what is required under Chinese law.
If you have an online user account, you can access, update and/or remove a significant amount of your personal data through “My dashboard” (you may find the entry from the right upper corner of the website, under your account name) on our website. To delete your online user account, please select “Click here to remove your Booking.com account” at the bottom of the “settings” page in the online user account. Account deletion will be completed upon further confirmation through email or text message.
If any personal data we have about you is not accessible through our website, you can send us your request at no cost.
For any of your requests in regards to this Privacy Statement and to exercise any of your rights or if you have a complaint, please send a message to privacyrequests@booking.com.
Booking.com Customer Service Center (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. controls the processing of personal data via www.booking.cn as described in this Privacy Statement.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement or our processing of your personal data, please send a message to privacyrequests@booking.com. For questions about your reservation, contact our customer service team through the CS contact page. Requests from law enforcement should be sent using the process described at https://www.booking.cn/content/law-enforcement.html.
Whenever you use our online services,cookies and other tracking technologies can be used in various ways, like making the Booking.cn website work, to analyze traffic, or for advertisement purposes. These technologies are either used by us directly, or by our business partners, including third-party service providers and advertisers we work with. If you want to learn more about what a cookie is, how they're used and what your choices are, you can read more here.
A cookie is a small amount of data that's placed in the browser of your computer or on your mobile device. So-called “first-party cookies” (not as much fun as they sound) are cookies served by the entity operating the domain through which the cookie is served. Booking.cn’s own cookies are therefore “first-party cookies." In case we allow others to service cookies through the Booking.cn websites, these cookies are so-called “third-party cookies."
In addition, there's a difference between session cookies and permanent cookies. Session cookies only exist until you close your browser. Permanent cookies have a longer lifespan and aren't automatically deleted when you close your browser. Only in exceptional circumstances, like for security purposes and where absolutely necessary, will a cookie have a longer lifespan than that.
In addition, other tracking technologies are used which are similar to cookies. These can include web beacons (also known as pixel tags, web bugs, or gifs), tracking URLs, or software development kits (SDKs). A web beacon is a tiny graphic image of just one pixel that can be delivered to your computer as part of a web page request in an app, in an advertisement, or in an HTML email message. Pixels can be used to retrieve info from your device, like your device type or operating system, IP address, and time of visit. They're also used to serve and read cookies in your browser. Tracking URLs are used to understand from what referring website the Booking.cn websites are used. SDKs are small pieces of code included in apps that function like cookies and web beacons.
All these technologies together are referred to in this Cookie Statement as “cookies."
Cookies are used for different purposes. They allow you to be recognized as the same user across the different pages of a website or between websites. The types of info that we collect through cookies include IP address; device ID; viewed pages; browser type; browsing info; operating system; internet service provider; timestamp; whether you have responded to an advertisement; the referring URL; and features used or activities engaged in within the website.
Our website use cookies for different purposes:
Technical Cookies: We try to give our visitors an advanced, user-friendly website that adapt automatically to their needs and wishes. To achieve this we use technical cookies to show you our website, to make them function correctly, to create your user account, to sign you in, and to manage your bookings. These technical cookies are absolutely necessary for our website to function properly.
Functional Cookies: We also use functional cookies to remember your preferences and help you use our website efficiently and effectively. If you're using the Booking.cn websites to search for a Trip, for example, these cookies remember your preferred currency, language, your searches, and your previously viewed Trip Providers. We might also use cookies to remember your registration info so that you don’t have to retype your login credentials each time you visit our site. Passwords will, however, always be encrypted. These functional cookies aren't strictly necessary for the functioning of our website, but they add functionality and enhance your Booking.cn experience.
Analytics Cookies: We use these cookies to gain insight into how our visitors use Booking.cn. This means we can find out what works and what doesn't, optimize and improve our websites, understand the effectiveness of advertisements and communications, and ensure we continue to be interesting and relevant. The data we gather can include which web pages you've viewed, which referring/exit pages you've entered and left from, which platform type you've used, which emails you've opened and acted upon, and date and time stamp info.
It also means we can use details about how you interacted with the site, like the number of clicks you make on a given page, your mouse movements and scrolling activity, the search words you use, and the text you enter into various fields. We use analytics cookies as part of our online advertising campaigns to learn how users interact with our website after they've been shown an online advertisement. This may include advertisements on third-party websites. Analytics cookies may also be used to enable our business partners to learn if their customers use accommodation offers integrated into their websites.
Commercial Cookies: We use third-party cookies as well as our own to display personalized advertisements on our websites and on other websites. This is called “retargeting,” and it's based on browsing activities like the destinations you've been searching for, the accommodations you've viewed, and the prices you've been shown.
To learn more about cookies and how to manage or delete them, please visit the help section of your browser. In the settings for browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox, you can set which cookies to accept and which to reject. Where you find these settings depends on your browser – use the "Help" function in your browser to locate the settings you need.
If you decide not to accept certain technical and/or functional cookies, you might not be able to use some functions on our website. We currently don't support “Do Not Track” browser settings. In case a common standard has been developed that defines what exactly will be meant by “Do Not Track” browser signals, we'll review Cookie Statement again.
In regards to advertising, your mobile device may allow you to limit the sharing of information for retargeting purposes through its settings. Be aware that opting out of an online advertising network doesn't mean that you will no longer receive or be subject to online advertising or marketing analysis. It just means the network you opted out of won't deliver ads customized to your web preferences and browsing patterns anymore.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments about this Cookie Statement, send an email to privacyrequests@booking.com. Our Cookie Statement may also be amended from time to time – so visit this page regularly to stay up to date.