Privacy policy

The information collected by Ballito Accommodation may include your name(s), identification information, addresses, contact details, personal preferences, previous interactions with Ballito Accommodation, information contained on public social media platforms, security footage and images.

In terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act (“POPI”), specifically sections 3 and 5, you have certain rights in respect of your personal information. Ballito Accommodation encourages you to read and understand your rights in terms of the purposes of this Act.

Personal Data is collected by several different means, including the following:

Online Services

Personal Data is received by Ballito Accommodation whenever you supply your personal information via our website or contact our office for the purposes of making a reservation, making payment for goods and services, or otherwise communicating with us. You may choose not to provide certain Personal Information, but that may limit the services or products that you may wish to obtain from Ballito Accommodation.

Interrupted or Incomplete Online Booking Process

When you are booking online but for some reason are not able to finalize the booking process, we process your Personal Information for the purpose of enabling you to easily continue the online booking process by sending you an email with a link to the online booking form, which is pre-filled based on the data you had already provided in the form.

Onsite Interactions

Ballito Accommodation acquires Personal Data when guests visit the premises in order to make use of or enquire about our accommodation services.

Customer Care

Personal Data is collected when guests or other persons make use of our customer services via telephone, fax, electronic mail or online chat.

Promotional Information

Ballito Accommodation endeavours to provide outstanding service to its customers, which necessitates us providing information to you regarding special offers. We will send you direct marketing communications and information about our services. These communications may be sent in various forms including e-mail, SMS and phone calls. In each instance, you are provided an opportunity to unsubscribe from these emails or you can contact us at 032 9460180 or bookings@ballitoaccommodation.co.za and we will remove your Personal Data from our mailing list.

Guest Satisfaction Surveys

We may send you guest satisfaction surveys by email after your stay to enable us to measure the performance of our holiday accommodation services.

Social Media and Online Reviews

We may process your Personal Data obtained through social media platforms or online reviews for the purposes of; addressing your questions or complaints; monitoring our online reputation, improving our services and identifying business opportunities.

We are not responsible for any actions taken by other individuals if you post personal data on one of our social media platforms. Please also refer to the respective privacy and cookie policies of the social media platforms you are using.

Ballito Accommodation may collect network or traffic data related to your use of and access to our services available on our website. Such data would include, but not be limited to, IP addresses, device and browser data, location information, user preferences, program usage, number of page visits, page views and time spent using our online services. We use this information for security purposes, research, segmentation of our customer base, marketing our services and to ensure that our online services are operating effectively. We will also use this information to determine the use of the website and to improve the content therein.

You may visit the website without providing any personal information. You accordingly hereby grant express permission for the website servers to collect the aforementioned data, but not the user’s e-mail address or any other distinguishing information. We may also aggregate data that has been collected and this aggregated data will not personally identify you or any other user. Ballito Accommodation assumes no obligation to protect this information and may copy, distribute or otherwise use such information without limitation.

Cookies

A “cookie” is a small computer file which is downloaded to your device. It collects information as to how you navigate our Website and the internet and helps us provide better website services to you. Cookies may collect personal information about you. Cookies help us remember information about your visit to our website, like your departure point, and other settings and searches.

Cookies enable us to understand who has seen which webpages and how frequently, and to determine which are the most popular areas of our website. They can also help us to operate our website more efficiently and make your next visit easier and customise your view of the website to reflect your preferences and activities. They also help us tailor our marketing and advertisements to you on our website, other website you visit, social media website and your other devices.

If you do not want data collected with cookies, you can choose whether to accept cookies by changing your browser settings.

We may use your personal data to confirm that your booking has been received; to process your booking; to validate you as a guest when using our services and calling us; to process payments for your booking, fulfill requests for refunds; to process booking enquiries; accounting or audit purposes and to prevent and detect criminal activity, fraud and misuse of or damage to our services; to prosecute those responsible.

We may use your personal data and process such information for the purposes of management, research, analysis and improving business efficiencies.

We may use your personal data to conduct customer satisfaction surveys so that we can obtain a better understanding of how we can continue to improve the services we offer. During these surveys we may collect personal data from you relating to your thoughts/comments about your experience with us.

We may use personal data collected about you to contact you by post, telephone and electronic mail (this includes e-mail, picture, video and short message services) about functionality changes to our website or changes to our Terms and Conditions of use and to communicate with you regarding the use of our services.

We may also contact you by electronic mail to market our products and services.

If you have any queries about any of our services, compliments or complaints, we will need to collect information from you, including your contact details, for us to respond to your query or provide you with assistance. We will collect this information when you send us an email, call our office or contact us via another form of communication such as through social media or an online chat tool.

Personal Data We Collect and Use for Legal, Compliance, Regulatory and Crime Detection and Prevention Purposes

We process your personal information so that we can meet our legal, compliance and regulatory obligations, for legal purposes, such as to respond to a valid legal claim, summons or regulatory order, and to protect our property, rights and interests as well as the property, rights and interest of other persons.

We also process your personal data for crime prevention and detection purposes, including the prevention of fraud for online payments, for identity verification, accounting or audit purposes. In each case, we do so in compliance with applicable laws.

Personal Data We Collect and Use from Third Parties

We collect personal data from third parties who you have authorised to provide your personal data to us (for example, this may be your travel agent or another person making a booking on your behalf, your travel companion, your travel coordinator, social media and other 3rd party aggregator websites).

Personal Data We Collect and Use When You Are Making a Payment

We collect various forms of personal data depending on your payment method (such as credit card, bank transfer, cash). For example, for credit card payments or refunds we may collect the credit card holder name, address, card number, expiry date and CVC code. This information is not retained any longer than is necessary for achieving the purpose for which the information was collected. All online card payments are processed via FNB’s 3D Secure ecommerce platform. We do not have access to or store any of these credit card details on our servers.

Business Transfers

If Ballito Accommodation is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, your Personal Data may be transferred as a business asset.

The data which we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the Republic of South Africa (“RSA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the RSA who work for Ballito Accommodation or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your booking or booking request, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

The period for which Ballito Accommodation will retain your Data will depend on the purposes for which the Data was collected, whether you have requested the deletion of the Data, applicable limitation periods stipulated in POPI or other legislation, whether any legal or regulatory obligations require the retention of the Data and good practice or our business interests. We will not retain Data about you for longer than is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which the Data was collected.

Although Ballito Accommodation takes all reasonable measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of your personal information, it is possible for internet-based communications to be intercepted. Without the use of encryption, the internet is not a secure medium and privacy cannot be ensured. Internet e-mail is vulnerable to interception and forging. Ballito Accommodation will not be responsible for any damages you or any third party may suffer as a result of the transmission of confidential or disclosed information that you make to the Ballito Accommodation through the internet, or that you expressly or implicitly authorise the Ballito Accommodation to make, or for any errors in or changes made to transmitted information.

Ballito Accommodation does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Children has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you or to object to the processing of personal information held about you. To do this, please contact us and specify what information you would like. We will take all reasonable steps to confirm your identity before providing details of your personal information.

You shall ensure that the Personal Information is complete, accurate, not misleading and updated where necessary from time to time. In the event that you wish to update or amend the Data that you have submitted to us, you may e-mail the amended data to bookings@ballitoaccommodation.co.za and Ballito Accommodation shall update your data and our mailing list accordingly.

Ballito Accommodation reserves the right to change, modify, add to or remove from portions or the whole of this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes to this policy will become effective upon such changes being posted to this website. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

In the event that you need to contact Ballito Accommodation for purposes related to this Privacy Policy, please use the following contact details, addressed to: The Information Officer