About Our Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy sets out the types of personal information we receive and collect when you use our services, how we collect it, and what we do with it, as well as some of the steps we take to safeguard information  We hope this will help you make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us.  We have assigned a Data Protection Officer to ensure that any personal information you provide to us will only be collected, used, and shared in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Privacy Officer (see the Contact Us section).

This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time. You are responsible for reviewing this Privacy Policy periodically and informing yourself of any changes to this Privacy Policy.

Who is the Sarah Tours Group?

References to ‘Sarah Tours’, ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘us’ means Sarah Tours Group Incorporated, which is made up of the below overland travel brands and entities.

This policy applies to the following Sarah Tours Group brands:

Sarah Tours, Inc. Cross Cultural Services, Inc. Morocco Discoveries Network, and Alcazar Tours, Inc. 

The following Sarah Tours Group entities host their own privacy policies:

The Cross Cultural Services, Inc. Alcazar Tours, and Morocco Tours & Discoveries DMC.

What Information do we collect about you?

Making an Enquiry or Booking an overland Trip

We will collect certain information from you when you make an inquiry or book an overland tour or other travel services with us. Depending on your interaction with us and what tour products and services you use, we may collect the following personal information:

  • Your full name, date of birth, gender, title, postal address, phone number, email address, next of kin, dietary requirements, travel insurance details, passport details (including nationality and city of birth), passport scan, visa application, visa page scan. We may also ask for medical information which is considered sensitive under data protection laws.
  • Any additional information you provide during the booking process to check if and overland tour, an active, cultural or spiritual trip is right for you. For example, if you have any pre-existing medical conditions, have a disability, medication that requires refrigeration, etc.

We may also keep records of the tour products and services you have enquired about or purchased from Sarah Tours Group, as well as collect information relevant to your booking such as flights and accommodation details you have not booked through our touring group.

If Sarah Tours Group is offering visa support or assisting you with applying for a visa in Countries such as Lybia, Sudan, Ghana, etc. you may be asked to provide additional information, including, for example, your occupation, your parent's personal information, marital status, your spouse’s personal information, your children’s personal information, employment and education history and social media tags.

Financial Information

To make a payment via credit card you can use the secure online booking engine or call your booking agent. Your payment card details are not recorded, stored, or retained by Sarah Tours group in any way and therefore we ask that you do not email your payment card details. We use a third-party vendor named Stripe to process these payments on our behalf. If Sarah Tours needs to provide you with a refund, your bank details may be collected, which are recorded and stored.

Photo and Video

When you are traveling with us, a photo or video may be taken by the Sarah Tours group leader or an employee, a professional photographer, or another passenger. We ask that any photos or videos were taken, by Sarah Tours Group personnel or otherwise, are done so with permission and respect for the individual traveler or else.  If you do not want to be included in photos or video, please let your Guide, tour leader or the photographer know.

Marketing and Other Interactions

  • When you subscribe to the newsletter, we will collect your full name, country, and email address
  • Via our preference center, we will collect your phone number, date of birth, postcode/zip code, residential state, and your travel preferences
  • If you request a brochure, we will collect your full name and postal address
  • If you enter a competition directly with Sarah Tours Group, or via one of Sarah Tours' external partners, or click through on a Sarah Tours advertisement, we may collect your full name, country, zip code, email address, and phone number, as well as your travel preferences.
  • When you click on a Sarah Tours advertisement via a third party, some of this information may pre-populate from an account you may have with that third party

Research

We may contact you to seek your interest in taking part in research projects, surveys, and interviews.  This may include contacting you with a post-booking or post-trip feedback survey and asking to provide a score and comment on your experience touring with us.

As part of this contract, we may collect your full name, email address, booking number, and tour code. You will be asked to provide a score and comment on your trip experience.  This information will be linked to any comments you make about your trip, other travel services with us.

Where you have provided the relevant details, we may also contact you in response to your feedback to discuss your comments about an overland tour, expedition, or other travel services you booked with us.

Job Applicants

If you apply for a job with us, we will collect your CV and supporting documents. We will also request you fill in a form and will ask for your personal information such as your full name, contact details, home address, date of birth, sex, ethnicity, and accessibility requirements.

Why do we collect your information?

Under data protection laws, for Sarah Tours to collect, hold, use, and share your information we must have a purpose and lawful basis to do so. The legal basis may differ depending on your interaction with us and what information we collect, and will fall under:

Legitimate Interest – Legitimate interest means your information has a purpose and is necessary in order to provide a product or service and does not override your rights and freedoms as an individual. For example; we collect your email address for the purpose of communicating with you. It's necessary to communicate about the tour product or service you’re requesting or booking, and for Sarah Tours to provide you with relevant information.

Legal Obligations - in certain circumstances we will need to use your information to comply with our legal obligations, for example, to comply with local laws in the country you are visiting with Sarah Tours Group, etc.

Vital Interest – we will collect your travel insurance information under the legal basis of vital interest, as it could be essential to you and your health that we contact your insurance provider in case of an emergency.

Contract – fulfilling a contract you may have entered into with Sarah Tours, such as completing a travel reservation as part of your planned tour itinerary.

Consent – we will obtain your explicit consent when collecting sensitive information (for example, medical information) and when required by spam laws before sending you marketing materials. You can revoke your consent or object to our marketing at any time; please see ‘WHAT ARE YOUR RIGHTS’ in our Terms and Conditions for further information on revoking your consent or objecting to Sarah Tours marketing.

Making an Enquiry or Booking a Trip

We use your information to arrange and provide you with the tour products and services you have requested and booked. This includes booking any of our tours, expeditions, transportation, accommodation, and activities. The following will provide more insight into these purposes:

  • Your personal information will be used by our group tour leaders to identify you and ensure your safety during the trip provided with Sarah Tours Group.
  • Depending on your destination and services being booked for you, we may be required by the supplier to provide certain types of personal information in order to secure the booking. Sarah Tours may also be legally required by local laws and governments to provide travel documentation such as passport details or a passport scan.
  • Your contact details will be collected in order to manage our relationship with you, including updates about your booking, providing relevant information and any applicable tickets, handling feedback and complaints, and to contact you in the event of an emergency.
  • Providing relevant information, which may include sensitive information, to insurance providers, their agents, and medical staff in circumstances where we/they need to act on your behalf or in the interest of passengers or in an emergency.
  • Where allowed, your medical information may be shared with any relevant personnel to ensure that we understand any specific needs you may have, before and during your overland trip. Any pre-existing medical conditions could impact your enjoyment of the trip, and by informing us of any conditions, issues, or limitations, we can ensure that Sarah Tours team is better prepared to assist if required.

Other than where it is in your vital interests or required by relevant laws, medical information can only be used by Sarah Tours with your consent. This is because medical information is considered sensitive and by consenting, you are showing us that you understand and agree to us processing this information. Providing medical information and consenting to its use by Sarah Tours is optional, however, it is highly recommended that information be provided for your safety and wellbeing.

Photo and Video

Taking a photo or video is something many people love to do, especially as a way to capture special moments during their overland trip. This is likely to be the reason why you may be included in visual media taken on your trip. On occasion, visual media captured by Sarah Tours group leaders and employees are so good our Studio team may wish to use them in our brochures or on our website for promotional purposes. There may also be a professional photographer scheduled on your trip for the purpose of taking promotional images. In these cases, a consent and waiver form will be provided to you.

Marketing and Other Interactions

Sarah Tours may use your information for marketing purposes including:

  • To identify and tell you about Sarah Tours tour products and travel services we think you may be interested in
  • To offer you deals on partner products and services
  • To tell you about trip deals, discounts, and promotions
  • To enroll you for Insiders, our email communication for customers who have traveled with us at least once, which will tell you about discounts, competitions, and new trips and travel services

Research

We conduct research and analyze your information, including feedback and comments, to help us improve our products and services and to enhance your customer experience, including customizing online content, and to improve your booking and website experience. Sarah Tours also looks for trends and future destinations and tour itinerary opportunities.

We may use your de-identified data for internal reporting (i.e. if a partnership was successful), creating new marketing strategies, and identifying overland travel trends.

Sarah Tours Group 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 travel reference if relevant and will be de-identified where possible.

How do we collect your information?

Your information may come to us in a variety of different ways. You may provide information directly to us 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, subscribing to a newsletter, or a loyalty travel program.

Your information may also be provided to us by an external partner or third party; for example, a travel agent booking your tour, Travel insurance provider, or a friend/family member who is booking your overland tour with us on your behalf.

If you are providing us with the personal information of another person, you must ensure that those you represent are aware of the content of Sarah Tours Privacy Policy and consent to your acting on their behalf.

Sharing your information

Making an Enquiry or Booking a Trip

In order to handle your inquiry, fulfill your product or service request, or manage your booking, we may share your personal information with the following:

  • Inside the Sarah Tours Group (including group tour leaders)
  • Related overseas entities (i.e. Destination Management Companies, DMC)
  • Partners (i.e. Travel agencies, etc.)
  • Travel providers (i.e. Airlines, overland tour companies, etc.)
  • Morocco Tours & Discoveries Network Partners
  • Third-party Tour operators (i.e. local operators DMC, couriers, mailing houses, payment processors, etc.)
  • Suppliers and Service providers (i.e. hotels, transfer drivers, etc.)
  • Government authorities (i.e. border crossings, etc.)

Similarly, if your trip is operated by a non-Sarah Tours Group affiliated tour company, your personal information will be provided to that company for them to confirm you on the trip and provide the relevant services. We also share your personal information with any travel providers or third-party local operators DMC for the purpose of improving services and tour experiences, and to investigate where necessary.

Please be assured only the relevant people will be provided with access to this information.

Any information shared with travel providers is done so via secure methods and the travel provider is responsible for any information they hold in their system.

Support Services

We share your personal information with third parties that help Sarah Tours Group operate, provide, improve, integrate, customize, support and market our overland tour products and services.  This includes the following:

  • Service Providers: We work with third-party service providers to provide website and application development, hosting, maintenance, backup, storage, virtual infrastructure, support and troubleshooting for quality assurance purposes, payment processing, analysis, and other services for us, which may require them to access or use information about you.
  • Marketers:  We work with a global network of travel partners who help us market and promote our products (for example, by providing consulting and sales services), who send marketing material for us, generate leads, and resell our tour services.
  • Research: We use third parties to assist us with research and analytics, including surveys, interviews, and other data gathering. We may share your information with these partners in connection with their services.

With your consent

We share information about you with third parties when you give us consent to do so. For example, we often display personal reviews of satisfied customers on our public websites. With your consent, we may post your name alongside the tour review.

Intracompany sharing

Your information may be shared within the Sarah Tours Group and our related entities as part of our global operations and to identify and market other products or services you may be interested in. This includes sharing your post-trip experience feedback, which is linked to your name and booking details, with our internal teams and entities.

Please refer to www.sarahtours.com for further details about our various brands and companies that comprise the Sarah Tours Group.

References to ‘related overseas entities’ refer to our related overseas bodies corporate as listed at www.crossculturalservices.net 

Other sharing

We may share your information with an enforcement body (i.e. police) where disclosure is authorized or required by law, or with insurance providers or medical personnel. This 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.

Selling data

We will not sell your personal information.

What are your rights

We want you to feel reassured that you have control of the information you provide to Sarah Tours Group. Depending on relevant data protection laws, there are certain rights you have over your personal information including:

  • You can ask us to update any inaccurate, incomplete, or out-of-date information we hold about you
  • You can ask us to provide you with a copy of the information we hold on you, or that we transfer that information to another service provider
  • You may request that we stop processing or using your information
  • You may request that we delete any / all information we hold about you
  • You may withdraw consent that you have provided to Sarah Tours Group

If you are subscribed to any promotional marketing newsletters, you have the choice to unsubscribe from these communications by scrolling to the bottom of the e-mail and clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link.

You may also wish to make a complaint about the way we have handled your personal information or other interference with your privacy rights.

You can exercise any of these rights at any time by contacting us (see the Contact us section) or your relevant privacy or data protection authority.

Contact us

Sarah Tours Data Protection Officer

Sarah Tours Group has appointed a dedicated Data Protection Officer as well as Regional Privacy Officers. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, we would like to hear from you. We treat privacy matters seriously and will endeavor to correct the matter.

Complaint to the Data Protection Authority

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.

If you are in the EU, please follow this link to locate the data protection authority most relevant to you:  https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en

Retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

How we keep your information secure

The Sarah Tours Group is dedicated to keeping your personal information secure. We have implemented various physical, electronic and managerial security procedures in order to protect your information from loss and misuse, and from unauthorized access, modification, disclosure and interference.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Third-Party Links

Links to Third Party Sites

Sarah Tours website may include links to third-party websites. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy policies. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Third-Party Widgets

Some of Sarah Tours services contain widgets and social media features, such as the Facebook "like" button. These widgets and features collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on the Services, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Widgets and social media features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Services. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

Cookies & Website Usage

What Are Cookies?

When you visit our websites, we use cookies. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by us or our partners. Cookies allow us to identify the computer or device you're using to access Sarah Tours Group websites. This information is sent back to our systems as you move around our website.  

Cookies are unique to the web browser you're using - so if you're using a desktop computer as well as a mobile, different data will be collected for each. You can find more information on the About Cookies website www.aboutcookies.org/

Cookies can be set by the owner of the website you're on. These are known as 1st Party Cookies. There are also 3rd Party Cookies that can be set by partner websites. Only the owner of the cookie can see the anonymous information it collects.

You can choose to accept all cookies, reject 3rd Party Cookies, or reject all cookies either by changing your internet browser settings or when provided with the option to do so by us. If you don't accept cookies, some features of our website won't work. For example, you won't be able to make a booking.

What Information Do We Collect?

Sarah Tours may collect information about your visits to, browsing of, and use of our website unless your web browser blocks this. The range of data we collect will depend on how you interact with our website.

This information may include:

  • Your IP address (a unique identifier allocated to your computer for your connection to the internet)
  • Your computer device details (PC, tablet, smartphone, watch, make and model, etc.)
  • The make and version of web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome) you are using
  • Your operating system (e.g. Windows, Windows Phone, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux, etc.)
  • Your time-zone
  • Your browser plug-ins
  • Any webpage you came from, identified as the referrer web page address by your web browser
  • Cookies
  • Page response times
  • Download error
  • Pages and parts of pages you visit
  • The usage you make of our website, including inquiries and searches undertaken, and registrations for accounts, forums, etc.
  • Services and products you viewed
  • Length of visit to website and pages
  • Page interaction information (such as scrolling, keys pressed, mouse clicks, touches, and mouse-overs)

This will normally be collected and used anonymously, and aggregated for analysis, with your name and any characteristics identifying you remaining anonymous, but our privacy policy will apply, and it will be treated as your personal information if this information is in any way linked to you personally.

The only time your information will be identifiable will be if you experience an error and we contact you to resolve the issue.

This information may also include:

  • Data inputted into forms and fields
  • Registrations for any accounts
  • Forum
  • Feedback mechanism
  • Social functionality
  • Newsletters or other features of our site
  • Usernames and passwords
  • Log-in / out history, and settings
  • Actions are taken within any account or other registration, including view, update, and changes to settings
  • Posts to any forum, feedback, review, or other social functionality on our website.

Why Do We Use Cookies and Collect Your Information?

Buying our products online

When you're buying something on our website, we need to use cookies to keep track of what you're booking as you move through each stage of the booking process. We use cookies to keep track of your searches and preferences.

Your recent searches and shortlisted holidays are recorded using cookies. If you've made a shortlist but you haven't saved it by entering your email address, we'll store your shortlisted holidays using a cookie, so you'll be able to see it when you visit us again using the same computer or device.

Improving your experience

Sarah Tours Group use cookies and software programs to record, measure, and analyze how our customers use our website. We use this information to understand what you want from our website, which helps us when we're considering future products like tour routes, expedition discoveries, and holidays.

We can find out how you move around our website, so we can investigate any errors stopping you from being searching for on our website. The data we collect from cookies is important for us to improve your experience using our tours and services.

Customizing and making our marketing relevant

Cookies allow us to provide you with information, products, and services that we think you'll find interesting. We can customize private tours and show you relevant offers and promotions on our own websites and through our advertising networks.

Advertisements on other websites

If you visit one of our partner sites, you might see an advertisement that's relevant to what you searched for when you last visited our own site. We work with advertising networks that use cookies to collect information on your preferences, meaning we can show advertisements customized to you.

Types of cookies we use

Third-party vendors use cookies to help us evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing and deliver more tailored advertisements to you on other sites. When you visit certain sections of the website, Google Analytics, a website analytics service provided by Google Inc (“Google”), will place cookies on your computer’s browser. The information generated by the cookies about your use of the website is transmitted to Google. This information is then used for the purpose of compiling statistical reports to enable us to measure and analyze the number of visits to the site and its pages, the average time spent on the site and the pages viewed. We will not (and will not allow any third party to) use Google Analytics to track or to collect any personal information of visitors to our website. We will not associate any data gathered via the use of cookies with any personal information from any source as part of our use of Google Analytics. For further information about Google Analytics please visit www.google.com/analytics and for details of Google Analytics’ Privacy Policy, please visit www.google.com/intl/en.

You may choose to opt-out of Google Analytics using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on which you may access at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

Refusing cookies

You can change your browser settings to accept or refuse all cookies, choose which cookies you want or don't want, or ask to be notified when a cookie is set. Use the help feature in your browser to see how.

Changing your mind after you've accepted our cookies

If you change your mind after you've accepted our cookies, you'll find an option within your internet browser to clear cookies that have already been set. Use the help feature in your browser to see how. You'll then need to change your browser settings to refuse cookies in the future.

Just so you know, you won't be able to benefit from all the features of our website and email newsletters or book your tour online with us if you refuse cookies.