Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to ‘personal information’ collected on the Website. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, ‘personal information’ means information that identifies an individual – information such as, name of the person, postal address, email address, phone number, passport details, credit card details etc. When other information such as destination choices, list of favourite trips, newsletter choices, product purchases or other customer preferences, is collected, this information may also constitute ‘personal information’.

We reserve the right to amend this policy at any time, and the latest version will be available on the Website.

You may be required to provide information about yourself when you use certain features on this Website or while getting your tour planned through us while communicating with us through email. For example, when you book a tour with us, you will furnish your name, address (postal and email), telephone number, passport details, credit card number, contact number and name of the person that you wish us to contact while you are travelling through us etc. If you request for the IBN newsletter, you will have to furnish information such as, email address, personal interests, destination preferences etc., which we may associate with other personal information you have provided to us.

We may occasionally ask you to complete optional online surveys. These surveys may ask you for contact information and demographic information (like pin code, age, or income level). We use this data to tailor and enrich your experience at our Website, by providing you with suitable content.

In addition to the personal information you provide to us, we may collect certain information (such as your Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address) through technology to make our website more interesting for you and easy to use. For instance, when you visit our Website, we may collect your IP address and we use it to collect information regarding the parts/particular page of our Website that is most often visited/used by you.

Our Website also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer and allow websites to remember information about the users. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our Website and to save you time during certain activities, such as filling up the booking forms, checking out of our payment pages, etc. You can choose to remove persistent cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your ability to use some areas of our Website will be limited.

Lastly, we use certain technical methods to tell us what parts of our Website you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our Website. These methods may sometimes involve the transmission of information to us. We also use these methods in emails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive email from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails.

IBN Tours uses the personal information collected from you to provide the services and deliver products that you request for and to enhance your experience on our Website, send you information and/or promotional materials that you may find interesting and for sales and business analysis and other business purposes.

IBN may also use your personal information to provide you with promotional information about activities, services and products that may interest you. This will also include promotional material such as newsletters, etc., that you may have requested for. Please note that you will have the option of opting out of receiving promotional communications by email, by clicking on the unsubscribe link that is provided in every such promotional email message. However please note that some promotional material may accompany delivery of a service requested by you. For instance, promotional material about latest additions to the Website may be delivered along with your pre-departure information pack. Any opt-outs that you may make will therefore not apply to these materials as they accompany services that you have requested for.

We respect your privacy and handle all personal information received by us with great responsibility. However, in the course of our business we have to share your personal information with the following entities and for the purposes set our below:

1. IBN may have to share some of your personal information with certain corporate entities that provide certain services on behalf of and on the request of IBN. Such services may include but are not limited to, credit card processing, sending emails, customer care by email, promotions management, etc. We provide to these companies only such information that they need to perform their services, and they are permitted to use the information only for that specific purpose or as required by law, unless any additional use or sharing of the information is expressly permitted under this Privacy Policy.

2. Service Providers – IBN has partnered with local service providers that offer logistical services and personnel support to conduct our tours. These may include like booking train tickets against foreign tourists quota, getting you visa approval say for Bhutan, sending your passport details to various hotels being used, for jungle safari booking, flight booking or any other service where in as per existing rules, such personal details are mandatory to be shared.

Such service providers also provide assistance and support to our customers who are on tour. Therefore, we would have to share personal information, including but not limited to, name, passport details, dates of travel, health and medical requirements, information on any special needs/requests that the customer may have etc., with our service providers to ensure you have a enjoyable and safe trip. All our service providers are highly reputable companies and have long standing experience in logistical and ground handling services for tour operations. The service providers are provided only such information that is required by them to perform their services. Use of your personal information by the service providers is restricted by contract and they are not permitted to use the information for any services that are not related to the service that they offer on behalf of IBN. However, if you choose to access, purchase any product or service that is offered by any of the service providers, the service providers may in some cases then collect your personal information subject to its own privacy practices. Please note that we do not control the privacy practices of our service providers, you should review their practices before your choose to access their services. Once such data legitimately shared by us with those of hotels/airlines/railways/forest department/law enforcing bodies/bank etc, any further use of such details will be as per their terms and conditions and their respective privacy policy.

3. Subsidiaries and Group Entities – We share your personal information with our subsidiary and group entities so they can let you know about products and services in which you might be interested. The use of your personal information by our subsidiary and group entities is subject to the same opt-out rights that apply to the use of personal information by IBN.

4. IBN may share your personal information with certain select third parties so that they may send you promotional materials about goods and services that they offer. When we share your information for promotional purposes, we try to send you only such information that you have expressed an interest in previously. All third parties that we may share your information with will be reputable companies that offer high end products and services. We will share your email address with third parties for promotional purposes only after you have provided express consent to such sharing by agreeing to it on our email newsletter registration page or elsewhere. You will have the opportunity to opt out of our sharing your personally identifiable information with these third parties for promotional purposes.

5. IBN may disclose any user information, including personal information when we are required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process. We may disclose personal information to law enforcement offices, third party rights owners, or others in the good faith that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to: enforce our Terms and Conditions or protect the rights, property or personal safety of our users or the general public.

6. We further confirm that their details can also be used by the company for our internal assessment of the services like percentage of guests from such and such country visited through us or any other internal purpose. We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve our services. Like couples from certain country do not want to share a King/Queen size bed. It may also be necessary to disclose our customers’ personal information to third parties, such as credit card companies etc, to help in resolution of disputes that may arise in the course of our business.

IBN understands the necessity to protect our customers’ privacy, and we therefore provide you the opportunity to opt-out of having your personal information used or disclosed for certain purposes. Receiving promotional material from IBN, our subsidiaries and group entities is optional. If you do not wish to receive promotional information from IBN, you can unsubscribe by writing back to us with subject line being “REMOVE”. Because we plan our communications in advance, it may take a few weeks for your request to become effective. If, due to human error, you continue to receive communication from us, please contact us again and will make every effort to correct the situation.

We sometimes provide links on our Website to other sites we think you may enjoy. These sites operate independently of IBN and have their own privacy and security practices. IBN is not responsible for the content, privacy practices or security measure on such sites. We encourage our customers to be read and be aware of privacy and security policies applicable to such sites, when you leave our Website.