Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal information Al-Rihla Voyages collects through this website, why we collect it, who else sees it, and what you can ask us to do about it. It is written to meet our obligations under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

Who we are

Al-Rihla Voyages is a travel agency operating in South Africa. For the purposes of POPIA we are the responsible party for the information described below — meaning we decide why and how it is processed.

What we collect

We collect only what you type into the enquiry form on this site:

• your name
• your email address
• your phone number
• the destination you are asking about
• the type of journey you are planning
• anything you write in the message field

We do not ask for identity numbers, passport numbers or payment details through this website. If a booking goes ahead we will collect those separately, directly from you, and only what the airline, hotel, or visa authority actually requires.

Information about other travellers

If you book for other people — family, a group, colleagues — you will give us their details as well as your own. When you do that you are confirming that they know their information has been passed to us for the booking, and that they are content for us to use it for that purpose. Where a traveller is a child, the consent needs to come from a parent or guardian.

We treat everyone named on a booking exactly as we treat you: their information is used to arrange their travel and nothing else, and any one of them may ask us directly what we hold about them.

What we do not collect

This website sets no cookies. It runs no analytics, no advertising pixels, and no third-party tracking of any kind. We cannot tell who has visited, what they looked at, or where they came from. Nothing is stored in your browser.

Our hosting provider records standard technical request logs, which can include an IP address, for security and reliability. We do not use those logs to identify anyone and we do not combine them with enquiry details.

Why we collect it

To answer your enquiry and to arrange the travel you ask us to arrange. That is the whole purpose. We do not sell your information, we do not rent it, and we do not add you to a marketing list because you sent an enquiry.

Who else sees it

Your enquiry is delivered to our inbox through EmailJS, a message delivery service, and this site is hosted by Vercel. Both act as operators on our behalf and are bound to process the information only as we instruct.

If you ask us to make a booking, we pass on what that booking requires — typically your name and travel details — to the relevant airlines, hotels, transfer and car hire operators, insurers, and visa or consular authorities. We share the minimum each one needs. We do not disclose your information to anyone else unless you ask us to, or unless the law requires it.

Information leaving South Africa

Both service providers named above operate outside South Africa, and the suppliers involved in an international booking necessarily do too. Section 72 of POPIA permits this where the transfer is necessary to perform the contract you have asked us to perform, or where the recipient is subject to comparable protections. By sending an enquiry or asking us to book, you are asking us to make exactly those transfers.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not become bookings are kept while the conversation is live and for a reasonable period afterwards in case you come back to us, then deleted. Booking records are kept for as long as South African tax and company law requires us to keep them, which is generally five years.

How we protect it

This site is served only over an encrypted connection, so what you type into the enquiry form is encrypted in transit. Access to our inbox and booking records is limited to the people who need it to do the work. No system is perfect, and we do not claim otherwise — but if a breach affects your information, POPIA requires us to notify both you and the Information Regulator, and we will.

Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us, at any time, to:

• tell you what information we hold about you
• correct anything that is wrong or out of date
• delete information we no longer have a reason to keep
• stop using your information for a particular purpose

Ask by email and we will act on it. There is no charge for a reasonable request. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you are entitled to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa, whose details are published at inforegulator.org.za. We would rather you told us first, so we can put it right.

Information Officer

POPIA requires every business to have an Information Officer. For Al-Rihla Voyages this is the owner of the business, reachable at the address below.

Contact us

Email

alrihlavoyages@gmail.com

Phone

078 935 2107

Changes to this policy

If we change how this site handles personal information, we will change this page and update the date at the top of it.