1. Introduction 

Welcome to Visit West’s Privacy Notice. 

We take your data very seriously and are committed to the privacy and security of it. This Privacy Notice describes: 

• who is responsible for the personal data that we collect about you; 

• the personal data we collect about you;  

• how we will use it; 

• who we may disclose it to; and 

• your rights and choices in relation to your personal data. 

This is to make sure you have a full picture of how we collect and use your personal data. We know there is a lot of information in here, so we have structured it in a format that enables you to click through to specific areas.  

It is important that you read this Privacy Notice, together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you, so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Privacy Notice supplements other notices and is not intended to override them.  

Our Website and Memberships are not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children. 

Key terms

In this Privacy Notice, when we say: 

• we, us, our or Visit West, we mean Visit West Limited (Registered Company No: 03715280) whose Registered Office is c/o Business West Leigh Court Business Centre, Pill Road, Abbots Leigh, Bristol, BS8 3RA. For more details about the different Visit West 'brands' please see the 'About Us' section below; 

• you or your, we means the person who: visits our Website (as defined below); interacts with us via our social media channels; subscribes to our newsletters; uses the services we offer; is employed or engaged by one of our Members; is employed or engaged by one of our Suppliers; or applies for a role with us;  

• our Members, we mean any organisation that has a membership with Visit West or any organisation that belongs to the Bristol Business Improvement District (Bristol BID);  

• our Suppliers, we mean any organisation that supplies goods or services to Visit West.  

• the Website, we mean visitwest.co.uk, visitbristol.co.uk, visitbath.co.uk and any other website operated by Visit West, including the Bristol BID and any of our other brands from time to time; and  

• personal data, we mean information that is about you and other individuals you may tell us about and which identifies you or those individuals. 

This Privacy Notice will be regularly reviewed. Any changes we make to this Privacy Notice in future will be posted on this page.  

2. Who is responsible for the personal data that we collect? 

Visit West is the data controller for the purpose of data protection law, in respect of the personal data we collect about you through your use of our Website and services that we provide. This is because we determine the purpose for which your personal data is used and how we use your personal data. 

About us 

We are a public / private sector partnership operating on a not for profit basis with two distinct but complimentary areas of operation. 

As a Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP) for the West of England Region and Bristol Business Improvement District (BID), we are committed to supporting Bristol and the West of England region to be the best place to visit, work, learn, and prosper. We achieve this by helping businesses to start, grow, innovate and thrive as well as lobbying local, regional and national government and campaigning on their behalf to tackle key business challenges. Any surpluses are reinvested back into the business in order to help achieve our purpose.  

The LVEP is a membership organisation and the BID has levy payers and so for legitimate business interests, must maintain contact information on our Members and the wider business community to communicate information on membership, events, training courses, policy and research (surveys), international trade and any other membership products or services.  

The brands operated by Visit West  

Visit West is the legal entity that operates the LVEP, which consists of the following brands:  

• Bristol BID 

• Bristol Shopping Quarter 

• Visit West Convention Bureau 

• Travel Trade 

• Visit Bristol 

• Visit Bath 

If you have any questions in relation to this Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us by email at data.protection@businesswest.co.uk. 

3. What personal data do we hold about you? 

We collect and use personal data about you in the course of providing our services to you or our Members, providing any associated services to you (such as customer services), the provision by you or our Suppliers of goods or services or providing the Website. We collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:  

• Identity and contact data, including of individuals who work for our Members and Suppliers - contact names (including first and last name), email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, marital status, gender and age. 

• Business information - job title, company name, address and phone number. 

• Membership information – including your contact details and details of any memberships you have with us or the Member organisations you work for have with us.  

• For recruitment purposes, we will also collect education and employment history, identity and other background checks (which may include appropriate criminal and financial checks and confirmation of the right to work in the UK), marital status, gender, age and recruitment information (including references). 

• Financial Data - bank account and payment card details (business and personal) along with billing address information. 

• Transaction Data - details about payments to and from you (including payments made to our Suppliers) and other details of services you have received from us. 

• Technical Data - internet protocol (IP) addresses, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our websites. Technical information, using cookies and online tracking. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our Cookies Policy.  

• Usage Data - information about how you use our Website. 

• Interest data - what business information you are interested in, for example, if the business you work for or with is interested in working to develop specific groups, or be involved in certain events. 

• Marketing and Communications Data - your preferences in receiving marketing from us, including our brands, together with your communication preferences. 

• Complaints Data - details of any complaints or enquiries made by you in relation to the services you have received, or in relation to use of the Website.  

Through our websites we also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data may also be derived from your personal data but will not constitute personal data, as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we can combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it is possible to directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data, which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Notice. 

Special categories of personal data and criminal offence data 

We may collect and use special categories of personal data and criminal offence data. For example:  

• When you book onto an event - this information may include details of accessibility or dietary requirements you may have, which may reveal information about health or religious beliefs. 

• As part of any recruitment activities - we may collect and use special categories of personal data as required in carrying out our obligations and exercising specific rights of yourself or us. This may include information such as health, racial origin, religious belief and offences or alleged offences. 

• As part of the Bristol Business Crime Reduction Partnership (Bristol BCRP) – we may collect and use special categories of personal data and/or criminal offence data in carrying out our role and activities within the Bristol BCRP. Where we do so, we process such personal data in accordance with the Bristol BCRP Privacy Notice.  

If you fail to provide your personal data  

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter with you. In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us, including for example if you have signed up to our newsletter, cancelling your newsletter subscription, but we will notify you at the time.  

4. How do we collect your personal data? 

We may collect personal data from and about you through:  

• Your direct interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you: 

• Enquire, apply for or receive any of our services including membership. 

• Purchase of one of our services. 

• Attend our events or attend an event where we have been present, such as a sales mission or trade show. 

• Register or use our websites. 

• Provide us with feedback. 

• Contact us by any means with queries or complaints. 

• Enquire or apply for a vacancy within Visit West. 

• Request marketing information to be sent to you. 

• Enter a prize draw or competition. 

• Complete a survey. 

• Automated technologies or interactions: 

• We may automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs, and other similar technologies. 

• We may also receive technical data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our Cookies Policy for further details. 

• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties:  

• Technical data from the following parties: Analytics providers, advertising networks and search information providers.  

• Contact, financial and transaction data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services. 

• Identity and contact data from data brokers or aggregators. 

• Identity and contact data from publicly available sources such as Companies House or the Electoral Register based inside the UK. 

• Employment related data from third party recruitment providers. 

5. How do we use your personal data? 

The lawful basis we rely on to process personal data. 

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases: 

• In performance of a contract with you. Where we need to perform a contract with you or are about to enter into a contract with you. E.g. if you take a service from us, we will collect your contact details to deliver the service to you. Where that service is funded by a third party, we will collect information to confirm your eligibility. 

• Legitimate interest: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests (or those of a third party). E.g. to prevent fraud and to enable us to give you the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance the impact on you and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interest. 

• Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement for us to use your personal data for a specified purpose. E.g. when it may be relevant to connect you to other organisations or with regards to your marketing preferences. 

• Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where there is a legal requirement to do so. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this basis. E.g. to pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity affecting us to law enforcement. 

Purposes 

We have set out the main reasons for using your personal data in the table below, together with the legal basis that we rely on. Where we rely on our legitimate interests to process your personal data, we have set out those interests in the table below.  

Purpose/Use	Legal basis
To communicate with you and other individuals in relation to the services we provide, including the memberships we offer and information on key business issues or to notify you of changes to our policies.	We rely on our legitimate interests. We require your personal data in order to communicate with you in accordance with the terms of the contract or to keep you updated of changes which may impact you.  On some occasions, this processing will be necessary in order to comply with a legal obligation, for example when communicating how we use your personal data which is required by law.
To enable you to register as a Member and to use the Members area of our websites. This includes but is not limited to sending promotional material promoting its events, training courses, membership services, business support services, policy and research work and other relevant offerings.	Typically, for such processing we will rely upon the performance of a contract we have with you as our legal basis, if you have become a Member with us.  Where we do not have a contract in place with you, we rely upon our legitimate interests. It is in our legitimate interest to carry out our business functions and be able to provide services to you.  However, in some circumstances we are required by law to obtain your consent in order to send direct marketing communications to you.
To send you direct marketing communications including making suggestions and recommendations to you about goods, market services, job opportunities or events that may be of interest to you.	Typically we will rely upon our legitimate interests. It is in our legitimate interest to developing our services and growing our business  However, in some circumstances we are required by law to obtain your consent in order to send direct marketing communications to you.
To manage any service or quality related issues, complaints, feedback, queries and other customer support.	We will typically rely on our legitimate interests. We require your personal data in order to manage and ensure the services we supply are of high quality, including the manner in which we supply our services.  We may instead rely on performance of a contract, where we have a contract with you.
To communicate with you and other individuals in relation to goods and services that we have been provided with by our Suppliers.	We rely on our legitimate interests. We require your personal information in order to communicate with you or the Supplier in relation to the supply of goods or services in accordance with the terms of the contract.  If you are an individual, we require this information in order to enter into or perform a contract with you when receiving goods or services from you.
To conduct research, representation and lobbying work, including our survey programme.	We will rely upon our legitimate interests. It is in our legitimate interest to developing our services and growing our business and ensure our offering is of the highest quality while identifying areas of improvement.
To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us for the provision of goods and services to us by our Suppliers.	Typically, for such processing we will rely upon the performance of a contract we have with you as our legal basis, if you have provided goods or services to us as an individual.  Where we do not have a contract in place with you (for example, where we have been communicating with you as an employee or representative of the Supplier), we rely upon our legitimate interests. It is in our legitimate interest to comply with the terms of a contract we have in place with our Supplier and to carry out our business functions.
To administer an event booking.	We may rely upon the performance of a contract we have with you or upon our legitimate interests as our legal basis.
To process applications to receive business support services.	We may rely upon the performance of a contract we have with you or upon our legitimate interests as our legal basis.
To enable you to access benefits provided by third party organisations.	We will rely on your consent.
To comply with any legal or regulatory obligations (including in connection with a court order).	Necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.
To administer our day-to-day business operations, including but not limited to (i) enabling you access to our facilities and/or services, (ii) meeting our legal obligations in carrying out our business, (iii) assessing applications to deliver services to us, (iv) appointing oversight bodies to govern and advise on our activities, and (v) carrying out enquiries or investigations into a complaint.	Typically, for such processing we will rely upon the performance of a contract we have with you as our legal basis, if you have become a Member with us.  Where we do not have a contract in place with you, we rely upon our legitimate interests. It is in our legitimate interest to carry out our business functions and be able to provide services to you.  On some occasions, this processing will be necessary in order to comply with a legal obligation, for example when communicating how we use your personal data which is required by law.
If you are applying for a role with us, we will process your data to communicate with you and manage your application.	The legal basis will fall into one of the following categories, depending on the communication and the purpose for which it was sent:  our legitimate business interests in order for us to manage your application and our recruitment process; and / or  to take steps at your request as part of the application process prior to entering into an employment contract with you.
If you are applying for a role with us, we will use your personal data including the information you provide on your application form and CV, to assess qualifications, fitness to work and skills for a particular job, including decisions about promotions.	This processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests. We have a legitimate interest in ensuring that our recruitment decisions are taken on merit and in ensuring that applicants have the skills and qualifications necessary to deliver the relevant job(s).  This processing may also be necessary for us to take steps at your request as part of the application process prior to entering into an employment contract with you.
Where we process more sensitive information about you, including in relation to your health, for example, if you share this with us as part of the recruitment process to allow us to make any reasonable adjustments for you or for us to establish specific rights you may have.	For such processing, will rely on either a relevant substantial public interest condition, explicit consent or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.   We may also process special category personal data where it has been made public by you/the relevant individual.
If you are applying for a role with us, we will use your personal data to check you are legally entitled to work in your chosen location with us. This may include verifying your identity and completing a DBS check.	The processing is necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations.  This processing may also be necessary for us to take steps at your request as part of the application process prior to entering into an employment contract with you.
To administer and protect our business and our Website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data).	We rely on our legitimate interests. We have a legitimate interest in the running of our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of any business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise.
To deliver relevant Website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you.	We will rely on our legitimate interests. This processing is necessary in order to understand how you use our Website, and to use this information to grow our business and inform our marketing practices

How we use your personal data for marketing purposes  

As a business support organisation that operates on a not-for-profit, basis our motivation is our region's success. Part of this is ensuring you are aware of the range of publicly funded and other business support services available to you, giving you the opportunity to benefit from those, which are relevant, and of interest.  

To help us decide what we think will be of interest to you, we may use information about your business - such as size, nature of business, geographical location, the services you have previously used and how you are engaging on our website. If you have requested information from us, made an enquiry, registered an interest in a service, requested a call-back, purchased a service, registered on our website, signed up for a newsletter, attended one of our events, engaged with one of our Funded Services, entered a competition- and in each case did not opt out of receiving that marketing - you may receive direct marketing (e.g. email, direct mail or telephone) communications from us which we feel will be of interest to your business.  

Your preferences: 

If your parent company has nominated you as a relevant contact required to receive information on its behalf as a member or project partner/participant with Visit West, you cannot opt out of important information that will be sent to you in line with our contractual obligations to members, levy payers and/or public sector and privately funded projects. 

At any stage you can ask us to stop sending you non-contractual or unsubscribe from a specific email by:  

• Visiting our unsubscribe-form to manage your subscriptions. 

• Clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop further emails sent from that particular service. 

Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated e.g. where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, you will still receive operational emails from us e.g. If we need to advise you of our opening hours or request information needed for a service you are receiving. We also conduct periodic reviews of our contract terms and conditions and will send you updates.  

Third party marketing

We take your data very seriously and will not share your personal data with any company outside of Visit West for marketing purposes.  

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us on the details set out in paragraph 13. 

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis, which allows us to do so.  

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law. 

6. Who will share your personal data with?  

We may share your personal data where necessary with the parties set out below for the purposes we have set out in the table above. 

• We rely on some third-party service providers to perform a variety of business operations on our behalf. Therefore, we may need to share your personal data with them. We provide our service providers with only the personal data they need to perform the services we request, and we require that they respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specific purposes and in accordance with our instructions.  

• We sometimes deliver services fully or part-funded by third parties, often public bodies, under contract. Where we deem that one of these services is the most appropriate solution for your enquiry, your data will be passed to the relevant funder. Please refer to the privacy statement of the relevant funder for details of how they process your personal data. 

• Where we are organising events with other organisations, we will notify you at the point that this data is collected. 

• Sector specialist networks may share business names with leading industry groups for the purposes of servicing and developing the membership offer. 

• In our membership services we provide a range of benefits, some of which are delivered by 3rd party organisations. We will pass on your details to enable to the 3rd party to provide those benefits to you. We encourage you to read their privacy notices. 

• In our research and policy work we work closely with local MPs and the local media who may be interested in contacting local businesses. We will only pass on your details with your express consent. 

• We may use third party marketing applications to manage your interactions with us. If you send us a private or direct message via social media, the messages may be stored by the third party provider. These messages will not be shared with other organisations. 

• We may disclose your information to third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this Privacy Notice. 

7. Where will we transfer your personal data?  

We may transfer your personal data outside the UK, including to the recipients listed above where they are based outside of the UK, and we will implement appropriate safeguards to ensure such personal data will be protected as required by applicable data protection law.  

You can request additional information about the specific safeguards applied to the export of your personal data using the details set out in paragraph 13. 

How long will we keep your personal data? 

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

We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you. 

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.  

Usually, we currently keep contact details for resigned Members and patron are retained for a period of 3 years. If you apply for a role with us, we will retain this information for a period of 6 months unless subject to specific contractual terms of our projects.   

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further consent from you in line with our Data Retention Policy. 

8. How you can make changes to your personal data 

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us. You can do this by contacting us by email at DataProtection@VisitWest.co.uk. 

9. How we protect personal data 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.  

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

10. Your legal rights over your personal data 

Under certain circumstances, you have the right by law to:  

• Request access to your personal data. You have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you and information about how we use it, subject to certain exemptions.   

• Request to rectify or correct your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete. 

• Request to erasure of your personal data. You have the right to ask that your personal data be deleted in certain circumstances. 

• Request to restrict the use of your personal data. You have the right to suspend our use of your personal data in certain circumstances. 

• Right to data portability. You have the right to obtain your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and for it to be transferred to another organisation, where it is technically feasible. This right only applies in certain circumstances. 

• Right to object to the use of your personal data. You have the right to object to the use of your personal data in certain circumstances and subject to certain exemptions. For example,  where we are relying on your legitimate interest and there is something about your situation, which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes, where this is not linked to emails or calls which are required in the operational delivery of contracts or service you are signed up to. 

• You have the right to withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. 

• You will not normally have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights).However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances. 

• We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). We may also contact you to ask for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response 

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact: DataProtection@VisitWest.co.uk. 

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues – www.ico.org.uk. We would, however, appreciate the chance to address your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance. You can send any complaints to us via email. 

11. Changes to this Privacy Notice  

Any changes we may make to this Privacy Notice in the future will be posted on our websites, so please ensure that you are viewing the correct version.  

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address. 

12. Contact details  

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, you can contact us via email at DataProtection@VisitWest.co.uk or postal address at Leigh Court Business Centre, Pill Road, Abbots Leigh, Bristol, BS8 3RL.

13. Third-party links 

Our websites may include links to third party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections 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 statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.