Carlson Travel Group believes in providing you the privacy you would expect in your
own home. When we collect personal information from you – whether online, over the
phone, or in person – we follow the privacy principles of the U.S. Safe Harbor and
of the countries in which we do business. These are our ten promises to you:
Frequently Asked Questions — Data Privacy
Who are we?
Carlson Travel Group is a subsidiary of Carlson Companies, the parent corporation
of businesses operating in the hospitality, travel, and relationship-marketing industries.
Carlson Travel Group brands include Radisson Hotels, Country Inns & Suites by
Carlson, Park Inns and Park Plaza Hotels, Regent Hotels, Radisson Seven Seas Cruises,
Carlson Vacation Ownership, Carlson Lifestyle Living, and Provisions. We have a
major interest in Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, the parent company of TGI Friday's
and Pick Up Stix. Carlson Travel Group is also a member of Carlson Companies' Gold
Points Rewards network.
How can someone learn about our privacy practices?
Wherever we ask for your personal information, we'll let you know how you can find
out about the steps we take to guard your information. If we're asking you for information
online, such as on one of our websites, we'll provide a link to our Privacy Promise.
If we're asking you to complete a paper form, we'll include a privacy notice with
additional points of contact for your questions. If you're making a reservation
by phone, our operators will be able to answer your privacy questions. Our hotel
and restaurant managers and our ship captains know about our commitments to your
privacy. They will be able to answer your questions and promptly address any of
your concerns.
What personal information do we collect, how, and why?
Our sole purpose in collecting your personal information is to provide the level
of hospitality you expect. By learning more about you and your preferences, we can
provide you meaningful offers and deliver services that meet your highest standards.
We'll require only the minimum amount of information from you that we need to provide
our services. If you're dining in one of our restaurants, you need not provide any
personal information. If you're reserving a stay in one of our hotels or a voyage
on one of our ships, you need only to provide your basic billing information. We'll
always indicate the minimum required information on forms that we ask you to complete.
We believe that in order to make your stay with us pleasing and comfortable, we
must strive to anticipate your needs. To do this, we'll occasionally ask for your
hospitality preferences. If you provide us comments through our guest cards, we'll
ensure your wishes are respected in future stays. We try to identify guests who
stay with us a number of times to let them know about discounted rates and programs
they may be eligible for. To learn more about the needs and wishes of hospitality
customers, we will obtain customer information from companies outside our family
of businesses, but will do so only if these companies have permission to share that
information with us.
If you're visiting one of our websites, we track the domain name of the computer
you're using and the places on our websites you visit. We track this information
without your name and use it to improve the design of our web pages. Like many commercial
websites, we use "cookies" to help our websites function properly. Cookies are small
files placed on your computer that contain information you've provided to the website.
They help our websites provide you a smooth registration process. To protect the
information stored on your cookies, we encrypt them and expire them after one year
of inactivity.
If you've given us your e-mail or postal address, we'll initiate contact with you
to invite you back again. At that time, we'll also let you know how to remove your
name from our marketing efforts. We'll never collect information about you for which
you haven't given your consent.
Do we collect information from children?
No. We will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from children.
How long do we keep your information?
We'll keep information associated with your name for only as long as we need it.
For each program we operate, we'll establish an information-retention plan. These
plans will result in eliminating your name from our records after a defined point
in the future, such as account inactivity, unless a law where you live requires
us to retain it for a different length of time.
How can you remove your name from our lists?
At any time, you can contact carlsonhospitality@carlson.com or 1-800-CTG-DATA to
request that you not be contacted for marketing purposes. Our e-mailed offers also
include instructions for unsubscribing from future e-mailed offers. If you want
to be removed only from our postal mailing list, please provide us with your complete
name and address. You can also ask that your name be removed entirely from our customer
database, but know that doing so will erase any Gold Points Rewards account you
have with us.
How can you access the information we've collected about you?
At any time, you can contact carlsonhospitality@carlson.com or 1-800-CTG-DATA and
request that a copy of your personal profile be delivered to your home or e-mail
address. We'll use secure means to confirm your identity to prevent the wrong people
from accessing your information. If you've registered to become a Gold Points Rewards
member through one of our websites, you may also access your information at that
website by accessing the "My Account" or "My Profile" sections.
How can you make corrections to your personal information?
At any time, you can contact carlsonhospitality@carlson.com or 1-800-CTG-DATA and
request that we correct your personal information, such as your name and address.
If you've registered to become a Gold Points Rewards member through one of our hotel
websites, you may also update your information at that website by accessing the
"My Account" or "My Profile" sections. We also try to ensure that our customer addresses
remain current by checking them against the national change-of-address lists that
postal services make available. To deactivate your online account with us, visit
the Member Services area of the website where you have the account.
Do we share your information with other companies?
We will never sell your information, and we will never share it outside our family
of companies for purposes unrelated to providing the services you've sought from
us.
One level of sharing occurs within the Carlson family of companies. If you stay
at a Park Inn in Atlanta, for example, your contact information will be kept at
that hotel. It will also be processed and stored at Carlson Hospitality's central
computers. Our corporate staff, who have been trained on our privacy and security
standards, may then access that information and send you offers for our other brands
for which you qualify.
If you collect Gold Points by using our brands, basic processing information will
be sent to Gold Points Corporation to enable it to keep track of your transactions
and properly credit your account. Gold Points Corporation is a subsidiary of Carlson
Marketing Group, itself a subsidiary of our parent Carlson Companies. Gold Points
Corporation protects your information with the same high level of security we do.
Other companies that allow you to redeem your Gold Points for their products and
services will have access to your name and point balance when you give them your
Gold Points Rewards account number. To learn more about the companies that form
the Gold Points network, visit the Gold Points website.
A different level of sharing occurs when we contract with other companies to help
provide our hospitality services. For example, when you check out of one of our
hotel rooms using a credit card, we'll authorize that payment through a third party.
An outside telephone company also provides the telephone network we use to transmit
information between our buildings and systems. We will use other companies to prepare
and send surface mail and e-mail to customers. Whenever we contract with outside
companies, we'll hold them accountable to protect your information to the same high
level we do.
In rare cases, we may be required by law enforcement or judicial authorities to
provide personally identifiable information to governmental authorities. If requested
as part of a legal proceeding, we will provide this information upon receipt of
the appropriate documentation.
Do our websites send your information to other companies?
No. Our websites do not use technologies called "spyware" that secretly collect
and transmit information about you outside the domain of the website.
Be aware, however, that whenever you click on any advertisements on the Internet,
the companies placing the ads may collect information about you through the use
of cookies. Because of the way the Internet technically operates, we cannot control
this collection of information. You should contact these advertisers or content
providers if you have any questions about their use of the information they collect.
We will never transfer you from one of our websites to a website outside our control
without giving you prominent notification. For example, there may be links that
will let you leave our site to another website owned by a different company that
operates a different privacy policy. When you select such a link, we will inform
you that you are leaving our domain.
Please see the Terms and Conditions of our websites you visit for additional information
about the sites.
Do we transmit your information outside your country of residence?
Yes, we probably do. As a global company, our operations cross national boundaries
by necessity. Our hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships operate at over 2,000 locations
in over 100 countries. To keep prices down for you, we've consolidated our data
operations into a few locations in North America and Europe. If you stay at a Radisson
hotel in Canada, for example, your transaction will be processed by our computers
in the U.S. If you call to make a reservation in the U.K., your call may be taken
by an operator in Canada. In every case, we'll ensure that all of our locations
are protecting your information to the same high level of security.
What security controls do we use to protect your information?
We use a combination of basic and advanced technical and procedural controls to
prevent unauthorized people from seeing, altering, or obtaining your personal information.
We operate secure data networks protected by industry-standard firewalls and intrusion-detection
sensors. We frequently update our antivirus mechanisms and security patches. Our
privacy and security policies are regularly reviewed and enhanced, and only authorized
individuals have access to the information provided by our customers. Any sensitive
information, such as a customer's credit-card number, is encrypted during transmission.
How do we enforce our privacy promises?
We take three main initiatives to ensure our global operations are meeting our ten
privacy promises. Our most important effort is to train our key personnel handling
customer information on their roles and responsibilities in protecting your privacy.
Each year, we also assess the privacy and security practices of our customer-information
systems. As an additional control, we've become members of TRUSTe/BBBOnLine, who
maintains a dispute-resolution process for its members. If you have questions or
concerns about our privacy practices, contact us at
privacy@carlson.com.